RSVP
Issuing Citations is public-facing event series aimed at fostering research connections, nurturing inchoate projects, and providing an organizational catalyst for future conferences and publications. It's a space for graduate students and early career faculty alike to co-present, interact, and form connections across disciplinary lines.
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This project investigates how language background influences the content of eyewitness-style accounts. English and Spanish differ in how they typically describe motion events: English often encodes how someone moves (e.g., running, limping) and the movement trajectory (e.g., into, out of, across), while Spanish more often emphasizes the people and locations involved. These patterns may matter in forensic contexts, where witnesses are asked to recall and describe crimes. Adult participants (18+) who are native speakers of English or Spanish will complete a 30-minute lab session in which they will watch 26 short, non-graphic public-space video clips depicting minor crimes (e.g., theft, trespassing, brief altercations) and provide anoral description of each clip as if giving a statement. Responses will be audio/video recorded, transcribed, and coded for motion components (Manner and Path) and scene components (Figure and Ground). Mixed-effects logistic regression will test whether language background predicts which details are foregrounded in recall. Findings will inform best practices for linguistically sensitive forensic interviewing and further research in bilingualism and applied communication.
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Shaped by the skepticism and disenchantment of modernity, postmodern man has eschewed or forgotten his role in the cosmic drama, reveling in his subjectivity and engaging in the work of aesthetic self-creation. Even so, he remains haunted by the specter of the transcendent. Theologians may respond to this absence in the postmodern heart by turning to narrative: instead of crafting systematic propositions which demand intellectual assent, literary theology seeks to re-enchant the postmodern mind and heart by making theological claims in narrative form.