College of Liberal and Fine Arts Faculty Research

Permanent URI for this collectionhttps://hdl.handle.net/20.500.12588/143

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Governance and Conservation Effectiveness in Protected Areas and Indigenous and Locally Managed Areas
(Annual Reviews, 2023-11) Zhang, Yin; West, Paige; Thakholi, Lerato; Suryawanshi, Kulbhushansingh; Supuma, Miriam; Straub, Dakota; Sithole, Samantha S.; Sharma, Roshan; Schleicher, Judith; Ruli, Ben; Rodríguez-Rodríguez, David; Borg Rasmussen, Mattias; Ramenzoni, Victoria C.; Qin, Siyu; Delgado Pugley, Deborah; Palfrey, Rachel; Oldekop, Johan; Nuesiri, Emmanuel O.; Nguyen, Van Hai Thi; Ndam, Nouhou; Mungai, Catherine; Milne, Sarah; Bukhi Mabele, Mathew; Lucitante, Sadie; Lucitante, Hugo; Liljeblad, Jonathan; Kiwango, Wilhelm Andrew; Kik, Alfred; Jones, Nikoleta; Johnson, Melissa; Jarrett, Christopher; Sapery James, Rachel; Holmes, George; Gibson, Lydia N.; Ghoddousi, Arash; Geldmann, Jonas; Gebara, Maria Fernanda; Edwards, Thera; Dressler, Wolfram H.; Douglas, Leo R.; Dimitrakopoulos, Panayiotis G.; Davidov, Veronica; Compaoré-Sawadogo, Eveline M. F. W.; Collins, Yolanda Ariadne; Cepek, Michael; Berne Burow, Paul; Brockington, Dan; Bessike Balinga, Michael Philippe; Austin, Beau J.; Astuti, Rini; Ampumuza, Christine; Agyei, Frank Kwaku
Increased conservation action to protect more habitat and species is fueling a vigorous debate about the relative effectiveness of different sorts of protected areas. Here we review the literature that compares the effectiveness of protected areas managed by states and areas managed by Indigenous peoples and/or local communities. We argue that these can be hard comparisons to make. Robust comparative case studies are rare, and the epistemic communities producing them are fractured by language, discipline, and geography. Furthermore the distinction between these different forms of protection on the ground can be blurred. We also have to be careful about the value of this sort of comparison as the consequences of different forms of conservation for people and nonhuman nature are messy and diverse. Measures of effectiveness, moreover, focus on specific dimensions of conservation performance, which can omit other important dimensions. With these caveats, we report on findings observed by multiple study groups focusing on different regions and issues whose reports have been compiled into this article. There is a tendency in the data for community-based or co-managed governance arrangements to produce beneficial outcomes for people and nature. These arrangements are often accompanied by struggles between rural groups and powerful states. Findings are highly context specific and global generalizations have limited value.
Stereotypes, language, and race: Spaniards’ perception of Latin American immigrants
(Cambridge University Press, 2023-07-11) Chappell, Whitney; Barnes, Sonia
The present study explores how two symbolic boundaries—linguistic variety and race—intersect, influencing how Latin American immigrants are perceived in Spain. To this end, 217 Spaniards participated in an experiment in which they evaluated three men along a series of social properties, but they were presented with different combinations of linguistic variety (Argentinian, Colombian, or Spanish) and race (a White or Mestizo photograph). The results of mixed-effects regression models found that linguistic variety conditioned participants’ evaluations of status, occupational prestige, solidarity, and trustworthiness, and both variety and race conditioned evaluations of religiousness. We contend that linguistic features become associated with a specific group of people through rhematization (Gal, 2005; Irvine & Gal, 2000) and, by extension, ideologies link those people with stereotypical characteristics. We conclude that the “ideological twinning” (Rosa & Flores, 2017) of race and linguistic variety can enhance stereotypes toward immigrants and impact their experiences in the receiving country.
Early acquisition of syntactic variation: Lexical conditioning of Spanish variable clitic placement
(Cambridge University Press, 2023-12-07) Requena, Pablo E.
This paper examines how children acquire Spanish variable clitic placement (VCP), a lexically conditioned phenomenon whereby clitics may precede or follow complex verb phrases. Research on how children acquire truly syntactic variable phenomena suggests that they either generalize one variant initially or they match the variation in the input from the beginning. Here I examine how children acquire the lexical conditioning of Spanish VCP. A corpus study of naturalistic conversations between parents and young children suggests that from the earliest ages examined (2;0-3;0) children display lexically-specific patterns that seem to be fine-tuned by the early school years. Experimental results using two different elicitation techniques with children ages 4;0-7;0 provide further support for early acquisition of the lexical conditioning of VCP and some evidence for fine-tuning during this age window. Thus, methodological triangulation enables detection of variable use where children would otherwise show categorical use of variants with infrequent syntactic phenomena, such as Spanish VCP.
Communication and Humility: A Journey
(2023) LeBlanc, H. Paul, III
This book covers the journey of communication development over the life-span including self and other-awareness, listening, knowing, and their impacts on the processes of teaching, mentoring and leading in personal and professional settings.
The Spirit of Travel
(2023-01-08) LeBlanc, H. Paul, III
This creative work of personal stories, poems and photographs relate to the search for beauty through travel handed down as family tradition.
Beyond Visualization: Remote Sensing Applications in Prehispanic Settlements to Understand Ancient Anthropogenic Land Use and Occupation in the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta, Colombia
(Cambridge University Press, 2023-01-27) Rodríguez Osorio, Daniel; Giraldo, Santiago; Mazuera, Eduardo; Burbano, Andrés; Figueredo, Estefanía
Archaeology is increasingly employing remote sensing techniques such as airborne lidar (light detection and ranging), terrestrial laser scanning (TLS), and photogrammetry in tropical environments where dense vegetation hinders to a great extent the ability to understand the scope of ancient landscape modification. These technologies have enabled archaeologists to develop sophisticated analyses that overturn traditional misconceptions of tropical ecologies and the human groups that have inhabited them in the long term. This article presents new data on the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta in northern Colombia that reveals the extent to which its ancient societies transformed this landscape, which is frequently thought of as pristine. By recursively integrating remote sensing and archaeology, this study contributes to interdisciplinary scholarship examining ancient land use and occupation in densely forested contexts.
Spanish copula selection with adjectives at age three
(Cambridge University Press, 2020-08-25) Requena, Pablo E.
Previous comprehension studies using Picture Matching Tasks (PMT) have shown that, by the age of four, Spanish-speaking children have acquired the semantics of estar being able to calculate the implicature that a property introduced with estar does not hold independent of time as well as displaying some ability to integrate discourse information about properties that change in the course of a story. This study extends that line of research to children under the age of four. Thirty-eight monolingual Spanish-speaking children were tested in two PMTs. The results show that at age three children differ from older children in their interpretation of the copulas suggesting that the distinction between ser and estar with adjectives emerges between the ages of three and four.
Spanish copula selection with adjectives in school-aged bilingual children
(SAGE Publications, 2020-09-28) Requena, Pablo E.; Dracos, Melisa
Aims and objectives/purpose/research questions: This study examined whether school-aged second-generation heritage speakers exhibit knowledge of the semantic and pragmatic constraints on Spanish copula selection with adjectives, and whether experiential factors affect copula interpretation. Design/methodology/approach: Following a between-subjects design, we administered 2 Picture Selection Tasks to 50 second-generation bilingual children (ages 5;1–14;10) and 21 first-generation adults living in the same community in central Texas. Task 1 included real adjectives and Task 2 novel adjectives. We administered a morphosyntactic proficiency test in English and Spanish (BESA/BESA-ME) to the children and obtained language exposure and use data. Data and analysis: Using generalized linear mixed models, analyses compared bilingual children to first-generation adults in their selection of the temporary picture with each copula (ser vs. estar), and also examined the role of age, language exposure/use, and morphosyntactic proficiency. Findings/conclusions: Only children with high Spanish morphosyntactic proficiency approached adult-like sensitivity to the semantic and pragmatic distinctions between ser and estar with adjectives. Age, Spanish exposure and use, and English proficiency did not significantly influence performance on the tasks. Originality: This study provides the first detailed examination of the acquisition of copula selection with adjectives in Spanish-English school-aged heritage speakers living in the US. Significance/implications: This study offers evidence of the vulnerability of aspect, as instantiated in Spanish copula selection, among school-aged bilingual children. It also suggests low-proficiency children might be a catalyzing locus of the accelerated changes in copula use.
Un estudio comparativo de la cognición docente en profesores de español y de inglés como lengua extranjera
(La Universidad Católica de Córdoba, 2010-04) Liruso, Susana M.; Requena, Pablo E.
El objetivo de este artículo es presentar los resultados parciales de una investigación sobre las creencias y los pensamientos que subyacen en las acciones docentes de profesores de español y de inglés como lengua extranjera (LE). Este estudio se realiza en la Facultad de Lenguas, Universidad Nacional de Córdoba con el aval de SeCyT. Se dará cuenta de los resultados parciales que indican que los docentes al señalar los puntos débiles de una clase los circunscriben, principalmente, a las categorías "procedimientos y tareas" y "alumnos". Se compararán resultados obtenidos de profesores de ambos idiomas.
Factores que influyen en la comprensión de las cláusulas subordinadas de relativo en español: estudio exploratorio
(Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, 2018-12) Manoiloff, Laura M. V.; Carando, Ma. Constanza; Cesaretti, Daiana B.; Ferrero, Cecilia; Ramírez, Adrian; Requena, Pablo E.; Defagó, Cecilia M.; Alemany, Laura Alonso; Segui, Juan
Abstract: Most of the comprehension of sentential meaning depends on how easily speakers assign thematic roles (such as Agent or Patient) to noun phrases. This process is particularly useful for comprehending relative clauses given that when processing them speakers need to dis-cern if they are dealing with a Subject (S) relative clause (El joven1 [que1Sujeto vino] trajo una valija, ‘The young man1 [that1Subject came] brought the suitcase’) or an Object (O) relative clause (El joven1 [que1Objetoyosaludé] trajo una valija, ‘[The young man1 [that1ObjectI greeted] brought the suitcase]’). Previous research has shown that the former type is easier to process than the latter type and it has been suggested that factors such as word order and the presence or absence of Case marking could impact the processing of O relative clauses. The present exploratory study is the first one to exploit the morphosyntactic flexibility of Spanish in order to examine four structures that combine different word orders with the presence or absence of Case marking. Following the presentation of a frequency analysis of these structures in a written corpus of Spanish, this paper presents two studies: one about spontaneous comprehension (thematic role assignment) without time limit and another one in which responses were timed. Results suggest that both canonical word order and Case marking positively impact comprehension. Resumen: La comprensión del significado oracional depende en gran parte de la facilidad con que los hablantes asignan roles temáticos (como Agente o Paciente) a los sintagmas nominales. Este procedimiento es particularmente útil para comprender cláusulas subordinadas de relativo, ya que al procesarlas los hablantes deben discernir si se trata de relativas con extracción de Sujeto (S) ([El joven1 [que1Sujeto vino] trajo una valija]) o con extracción de Objeto (O) (El joven1 [que1Objetoyo saludé] trajo una valija). Trabajos previos han mostrado que el primer tipo de extracción resulta más fácil de procesar que el segundo y se ha sugerido que factores como el orden de palabras y la presencia o ausencia de marca de Caso podrían influir en el procesamiento de las relativas de O. El presente estudio exploratorio es el primero que aprovecha la flexibilidad morfosintáctica del español para examinar cuatro estructuras que combinan distintos órdenes de palabras con presencia o ausencia de marca de Caso. Luego de ofrecer un análisis de frecuencia de uso de estas estructuras en un corpus escrito del español, se presentan dos estudios: uno sobre comprensión espontánea (asignación de roles) sin límite de tiempo y otro de elección de opciones con límite de tiempo. Los resultados sugieren que tanto el orden canónico como la marca de Caso benefician la comprensión.
Integrating Environmental Awareness in ELT Through Picturebooks
(Nord University, 2022-11) Cad, Ana Cecilia; Liruso, Susana; Requena, Pablo E.
This paper provides a report of classroom experiences that provide insight into the use of a picturebook to raise students’ environmental awareness in an ELT primary context in Argentina. It describes how a picturebook can help build reading comprehension in a second language and foster learning across the curriculum mediated by literature. First, we discuss how picturebooks can contribute to ELT and to raising students’ awareness of environmental citizenship. Then, we present two pedagogical interventions with children aged 9 to 11 years old that made use of a teacher-produced picturebook dealing with the environmental issue of wildfire devastation. Through examples of children’s performance in activities that accompanied the reading events, we illustrate how children can make use of non-linguistic resources to understand linguistic input in a second/foreign language and interpret the meaning of a story. The experiences also reveal a teacher-initiated approach to facilitate reflection about environmental issues through picturebooks.
Why programmatic parties reduce criminal violence: Theory and evidence from Brazil
(SAGE Publications, 2023-02-04) Nieto-Matiz, Camilo; Skigin, Natán
Extensive research suggests that electoral competition and power alternations increase violence in weakly institutionalized democracies. Yet, little is known about how political parties affect violence and security. We theorize that the type of party strengthened in elections shapes security outcomes and argue that the rise of programmatic parties, at the expense of clientelistic parties, can significantly reduce violence. In contexts of large-scale criminal violence, programmatic parties are less likely to establish alliances with coercive actors because they possess fewer incentives and greater coordination capacity. Focusing on Brazil, we use a regression discontinuity design that leverages the as-if random assignment of election winners across three rounds of mayoral races. We find that violent crime decreased in municipalities where programmatic parties won coin-flip elections, while it increased in those where clientelistic parties triumphed. Our findings suggest that whether electoral competition increases violence depends on the type of party that wins elections.
The electoral implications of uncivil and intolerant rhetoric in American politics
(SAGE Publications, 2021-11-14) Gervais, Bryan T.
Can political incivility bolster support for American candidates? Conventional wisdom holds that it does and Donald Trump’s 2016 electoral victories demonstrate the power of uncivil rhetoric—particularly, when it is paired with racially intolerant rhetoric. However, recent studies have demonstrated that leveraging political incivility can backfire on elites. As such, it is unclear whether uncivil rhetoric has electoral value, or if its utility is bolstered when it is joined by intolerant rhetoric. Leveraging a survey experiment, I find that both political incivility and racial intolerance induce feelings of disgust. The presence of intolerance in a message weakens the effects of incivility on disgust for out-group elites, suggesting that multiple rhetorical norm violations result in diminishing (negative) returns. Moreover, the effects of intolerance on disgust are moderated by a subject’s level of racial resentment. These aversive reactions to incivility and intolerance reduce electoral support for the elite sponsoring the message. In-group candidates pay a larger electoral penalty, although the penalty for intolerance is moderated by subject racial resentment. I conclude that, contra claims that political incivility works, uncivil messaging serves as a strategic liability for candidates.
Perceived Barriers and Use of Evidence-Based Practices for Adolescent HPV Vaccination among East Texas Providers
(2023-03-25) Kim, Sarah; Zhou, Kelvin; Parker, Susan; Kline, Kimberly N.; Montealegre, Jane R.; McGee, Lindy U.
Adolescents living in rural areas are less likely to be up to date on the human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine, which can prevent cervical cancer. We administered a telephone survey to 27 clinics in rural East Texas to assess perceived barriers to HPV vaccination and current use of evidence-based interventions to promote HPV vaccination. Perceived barriers were assessed using a 5-point Likert scale and clinical implementation of evidence-based practices was determined. Findings are reported using descriptive statistics. The most commonly reported barriers were missed vaccination opportunities due to the pandemic (66.7%), followed by vaccine hesitancy due to the pandemic (44.4%) and due to the HPV vaccine specifically (33.3%). Fewer than a third of clinics reported using the evidence-based strategies of use of a "refusal to vaccinate" form (29.6%), having an identified HPV vaccine champion (29.6%), and recommending the HPV vaccine at age 9 (22.2%). While many clinics surveyed currently implement evidence-based practices to promote HPV vaccination, there is a need and desire for additional HPV vaccination interventions in East Texas clinics.
Application of Statistics Training to Real-World Contexts: Issues Related to Working as Data Analysts Outside Academe
(2021-07-09) LeBlanc, H. Paul, III; Cortez, David, A.; Doss, Leslie, E.
Through I-Corps™ customer discovery interviews (NSF Award 1925391), the authors determined that early and mid-career data analysts would be positively benefitted by the development and commercialization of an interactive software tool designed to assist in the selection of statistical tests for their real-world applications. The primary advantage addressed with this innovation is the concomitant reduction in time spent by data analysts in training and/or researching which statistical method to employ for a specific application. This paper details the development of the Stat Tree™ software prototype to accomplish those goals.
The Political Public Relations Battleground: Tactics and Images in the 2000 U.S. Presidential Campaign
(2002) Kanso, Ali; LeBlanc, H. Paul, III
This study examines the public relations tools that Governor George W. Bush and Vice-president Al Gore used during the 2000 U.S. Presidential Campaign. It also draws some lessons from mistakes that both candidates committed.
Improving the media mix: how promotional products enhance advertising impact
(Taylor & Francis, 2022-03-23) Liu, Fang; LeBlanc, H. Paul, III; Kanso, Ali; Nelson, Richard
Many traditional forms of advertising are losing ground to alternative media. Such a trend represents opportunities for the promotional products medium. However, the effectiveness of promotional products in comparison to other advertising alternatives has not been widely empirically tested. This experiment examines responses to advertising media by employing two sets of seven randomly assigned conditions at two major U.S. universities. The findings revealed statistically significant effective improvements in contrast to television advertising when promotional products were used in credibility perceptions, attitudes towards the advertisement and the product, and behavioural intents such as purchasing intent and referral intent. Additionally, positive effects were observed when promotional products were used in conjunction with television and print advertising compared with television and print advertising alone. Future directions for research are recommended.
COVID-19 Effects on Communication Course and Faculty Evaluations
(Sage, 2021-08-25) LeBlanc, H. Paul, III
Student evaluations of teaching (SETs) are utilized by universities as one component in assessing course effectiveness, despite evidence in the research regarding their validity. With the global COVID-19 pandemic, many universities rapidly transitioned teaching modalities from face-to-face to online learning, regardless of the faculty experience. This study investigates the effects on SETs of the rapid transition in teaching modalities for all sections of courses occurring during COVID-19 compared with all sections of courses taught within a Communication department at a large public research university over the past 8 years. The results indicate moderate effects from the rapid transition to online learning.
Spanish-Speaking Physicians: Satisfaction in the Transactional Relationship with Patients
(2008) Losey, Erin Hill; LeBlanc, H. Paul, III
This study examined self-reports of engagement, confirmation, and satisfaction by Spanish-speaking physicians within the context of the relationship with Spanish-speaking patients. Previous research suggests the interaction is transactional and both physician and patient mutually contribute to the relationship. Results demonstrated engagement and confirmation positively influenced relational satisfaction of physicians (R2 = .58, F(1,14) = 19.38, p < .01; R2 = .29, F(1,14) = 5.84, p = .03, respectively). Additional results are reported. Implications and directions of future research are discussed within.
On the use of course evaluations for purposes of faculty personnel decisions
(2012) LeBlanc, H. Paul, III
Many universities utilize student teaching evaluations even though their validity is hotly contested in the research. This study examines publicly available data of all sections of courses evaluated in a program at a large public research university over three successive semesters to determine if claims of validity can be confirmed. Additionally, this study investigates other characteristics of the data such as the relationship between course average grade and per course global indicators of teaching and course effectiveness. Given the findings, the study offers policy recommendations for the use of the student teaching evaluations in faculty personnel decisions.

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