Robert Defina
Biographic Data
| ID | 121499 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Robert Defina |
| GIVEN NAMES | Robert |
| FAMILY NAME | Defina |
| SIGNATURE | DEFINA R |
| AFFILIATIONS | The University of Melbourne |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-3637-1271 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 23 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 210 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 23 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1995 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 8 |
A comparative study of child-directed language across five cultures based on data from the Acquisition Sketch Project
Special Issue: In Memory of Barbara F. Kelly
Children’s verbal inflection development in Pitjantjatjara
Analyzing polysemiosis
Human communication is by default polysemiotic : it involves the spontaneous combination of two or more semiotic systems , the most important ones being language , gesture , and depiction . We formulate an original cognitive-semiotic framework for the analysis of polysemiosis, contrasting this with more familiar systems based on the ambiguous term “multimodality.” To be fully explicit, we developed a coding system for the analysis of polysemiotic…
Do White People See Variation in Black Skin Tones? Reexamining a Purported Outgroup Homogeneity Effect
Previous research has reported that white survey interviewers remember black respondents’ skin tones in a much narrower range than recollections by black interviewers. This finding has been used to suggest that, in line with the one-drop rule, whites do not perceive meaningful differences between light- and dark-skinned black people. The authors reanalyze evidence thought to demonstrate relative homogeneity in white interviewers’ evaluation of bl…
They Talk Muṯumuṯu
Vowel elision is common in Pitjantjatjara and Yankunytjatjara connected speech. It also appears to be a locus of language change, with young people extending elision to new contexts; resulting in a distinctive style of speech which speakers refer to as muṯumuṯu (‘short’ speech). This study examines the productions of utterance-final past tense suffixes /-nu, -ɳu, -ŋu/ by four older and four younger Pitjantjatjara speakers in spontaneous speech. T…
The Reliability of Same-Race and Cross-Race Skin Tone Judgments
Serial verb constructions and their subtypes in Avatime
Preview this article: Serial verb constructions and their subtypes in Avatime, Page 1 of 1 /docserver/preview/fulltext/sl.40.3.07def-1.gif
Do serial verb constructions describe single events
Social status attainment and racial category selection in the contemporary United States
Reliability Concerns in Measuring Respondent Skin Tone by Interviewer Observation
The current study assesses the intercoder reliability of one of the most important skin tone measurement instruments-the Massey-Martin scale. This scale is used in several high-profile social surveys, but has not yet been psychometrically evaluated. The current evaluation is only possible because, for the first time, the General Social Survey's 2010-2014 panel used the instrument to guide interviewers' skin tone observation of the same respondent…
Do serial verb constructions describe single events
Serial verb constructions have often been said to refer to single conceptual events. However, evidence to support this claim has been elusive. This article introduces co-speech gestures as a new way of investigating the relationship. The alignment patterns of gestures with serial verb constructions and other complex clauses were compared in Avatime (Ka-Togo, Kwa, Niger-Congo). Serial verb constructions tended to occur with single gestures overlap…
Racial Rigidity in the United States
Previous articleNext article FreeCommentary and DebateRacial Rigidity in the United States: Comment on Saperstein and Penner1Rory Kramer, Robert DeFina, and Lance HannonRory KramerVillanova University Search for more articles by this author , Robert DeFinaVillanova University Search for more articles by this author , and Lance HannonVillanova University Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUSFull TextSupplemental Material Add to favor…
Vision verbs dominate in conversation across cultures, but the ranking of non-visual verbs varies
To what extent does perceptual language reflect universals of experience and cognition, and to what extent is it shaped by particular cultural preoccupations? This paper investigates the universality~relativity of perceptual language by examining the use of basic perception terms in spontaneous conversation across 13 diverse languages and cultures. We analyze the frequency of perception words to test two universalist hypotheses: that sight is alw…
Just Skin Deep? The Impact of Interviewer Race on the Assessment of African American Respondent Skin Tone
The Relationship Between Skin Tone and School Suspension for African Americans
The impact of light skin on prison time for black female offenders
There is a long history of social science research on the importance of race for determining life outcomes. However, there are relatively few social science studies on the importance of skin tone within racial groups. Some recent research has documented the quantifiable advantages associated with having a lighter skin shade, particularly in terms of occupational attainment and earnings among blacks. A handful of studies focusing on black men have…
The Legacy of Black Lynching and Contemporary Segregation in the South
Wacquant (2001) and others have argued that social control efforts directed at racial and ethnic minorities frequently shift institutional form and become more nuanced as societies modernize, even as the underlying function persists. This study examines the connection between southern lynching and housing segregation. We argue that legal, political, social and demographic changes in the south made lynching dysfunctional as a means of control. Amo…
The state of the Economy and the Relationship Between prisoner Reentry and Crime
Previous research has identified a positive relationship between prisoner reentry and crime rates. The relationship potentially reflects both the recidivism of reentering offenders and the broader impact of the releases on the social organization of the areas to which they return. This article explores how economic conditions moderate the association between the size of the reentering population and crime rates. Using a state-level panel spanning…
For incapacitation, there is no time like the present
Violent Crime in African American and White Neighborhoods
The social disorganization and anomie perspectives generally suggest that poverty's criminogenic effect is racially invariant. These perspectives imply that policies that alleviate economic deprivation will equally reduce rates of violent crime in neighborhoods that are predominately white and neighborhoods that are predominately black. In contrast, several social commentators have suggested that alleviating poverty will be a relatively ineffecti…
Racial similarity in the relationship between poverty and homicide rates
The Differential Regional Effects of Monetary Policy
This paper examines whether monetary policy has similar effects across regions in the United States. Impulse response functions from an estimated structural vector autoregression reveal a core of regions—New England, Mideast, Plains, Southeast, and the Far West— that respond to monetary policy changes in ways that closely approximate the U.S. average response. Of the three noncore regions, one (Great Lakes) is noticeably more sensitive to monetar…
Regional Income Dynamics
The impact of light skin on prison time for black female offenders
There is a long history of social science research on the importance of race for determining life outcomes. However, there are relatively few social science studies on the importance of skin tone within racial groups. Some recent research has documented the quantifiable advantages associated with having a lighter skin shade, particularly in terms of occupational attainment and earnings among blacks. A handful of studies focusing on black men have…
The Relationship Between Skin Tone and School Suspension for African Americans
Reliability Concerns in Measuring Respondent Skin Tone by Interviewer Observation
The current study assesses the intercoder reliability of one of the most important skin tone measurement instruments-the Massey-Martin scale. This scale is used in several high-profile social surveys, but has not yet been psychometrically evaluated. The current evaluation is only possible because, for the first time, the General Social Survey's 2010-2014 panel used the instrument to guide interviewers' skin tone observation of the same respondent…
Vision verbs dominate in conversation across cultures, but the ranking of non-visual verbs varies
To what extent does perceptual language reflect universals of experience and cognition, and to what extent is it shaped by particular cultural preoccupations? This paper investigates the universality~relativity of perceptual language by examining the use of basic perception terms in spontaneous conversation across 13 diverse languages and cultures. We analyze the frequency of perception words to test two universalist hypotheses: that sight is alw…
Just Skin Deep? The Impact of Interviewer Race on the Assessment of African American Respondent Skin Tone
Racial Rigidity in the United States
Previous articleNext article FreeCommentary and DebateRacial Rigidity in the United States: Comment on Saperstein and Penner1Rory Kramer, Robert DeFina, and Lance HannonRory KramerVillanova University Search for more articles by this author , Robert DeFinaVillanova University Search for more articles by this author , and Lance HannonVillanova University Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUSFull TextSupplemental Material Add to favor…
The Legacy of Black Lynching and Contemporary Segregation in the South
Wacquant (2001) and others have argued that social control efforts directed at racial and ethnic minorities frequently shift institutional form and become more nuanced as societies modernize, even as the underlying function persists. This study examines the connection between southern lynching and housing segregation. We argue that legal, political, social and demographic changes in the south made lynching dysfunctional as a means of control. Amo…
Social status attainment and racial category selection in the contemporary United States
Do serial verb constructions describe single events
Serial verb constructions have often been said to refer to single conceptual events. However, evidence to support this claim has been elusive. This article introduces co-speech gestures as a new way of investigating the relationship. The alignment patterns of gestures with serial verb constructions and other complex clauses were compared in Avatime (Ka-Togo, Kwa, Niger-Congo). Serial verb constructions tended to occur with single gestures overlap…
Violent Crime in African American and White Neighborhoods
The social disorganization and anomie perspectives generally suggest that poverty's criminogenic effect is racially invariant. These perspectives imply that policies that alleviate economic deprivation will equally reduce rates of violent crime in neighborhoods that are predominately white and neighborhoods that are predominately black. In contrast, several social commentators have suggested that alleviating poverty will be a relatively ineffecti…
Racial similarity in the relationship between poverty and homicide rates
They Talk Muṯumuṯu
Vowel elision is common in Pitjantjatjara and Yankunytjatjara connected speech. It also appears to be a locus of language change, with young people extending elision to new contexts; resulting in a distinctive style of speech which speakers refer to as muṯumuṯu (‘short’ speech). This study examines the productions of utterance-final past tense suffixes /-nu, -ɳu, -ŋu/ by four older and four younger Pitjantjatjara speakers in spontaneous speech. T…
The state of the Economy and the Relationship Between prisoner Reentry and Crime
Previous research has identified a positive relationship between prisoner reentry and crime rates. The relationship potentially reflects both the recidivism of reentering offenders and the broader impact of the releases on the social organization of the areas to which they return. This article explores how economic conditions moderate the association between the size of the reentering population and crime rates. Using a state-level panel spanning…
Regional Income Dynamics
Do White People See Variation in Black Skin Tones? Reexamining a Purported Outgroup Homogeneity Effect
Previous research has reported that white survey interviewers remember black respondents’ skin tones in a much narrower range than recollections by black interviewers. This finding has been used to suggest that, in line with the one-drop rule, whites do not perceive meaningful differences between light- and dark-skinned black people. The authors reanalyze evidence thought to demonstrate relative homogeneity in white interviewers’ evaluation of bl…
The Reliability of Same-Race and Cross-Race Skin Tone Judgments
For incapacitation, there is no time like the present
Regional Income Dynamics
The Differential Regional Effects of Monetary Policy
This paper examines whether monetary policy has similar effects across regions in the United States. Impulse response functions from an estimated structural vector autoregression reveal a core of regions—New England, Mideast, Plains, Southeast, and the Far West— that respond to monetary policy changes in ways that closely approximate the U.S. average response. Of the three noncore regions, one (Great Lakes) is noticeably more sensitive to monetar…
Violent Crime in African American and White Neighborhoods
The social disorganization and anomie perspectives generally suggest that poverty's criminogenic effect is racially invariant. These perspectives imply that policies that alleviate economic deprivation will equally reduce rates of violent crime in neighborhoods that are predominately white and neighborhoods that are predominately black. In contrast, several social commentators have suggested that alleviating poverty will be a relatively ineffecti…
Racial similarity in the relationship between poverty and homicide rates
The state of the Economy and the Relationship Between prisoner Reentry and Crime
Previous research has identified a positive relationship between prisoner reentry and crime rates. The relationship potentially reflects both the recidivism of reentering offenders and the broader impact of the releases on the social organization of the areas to which they return. This article explores how economic conditions moderate the association between the size of the reentering population and crime rates. Using a state-level panel spanning…
For incapacitation, there is no time like the present
The impact of light skin on prison time for black female offenders
There is a long history of social science research on the importance of race for determining life outcomes. However, there are relatively few social science studies on the importance of skin tone within racial groups. Some recent research has documented the quantifiable advantages associated with having a lighter skin shade, particularly in terms of occupational attainment and earnings among blacks. A handful of studies focusing on black men have…
The Legacy of Black Lynching and Contemporary Segregation in the South
Wacquant (2001) and others have argued that social control efforts directed at racial and ethnic minorities frequently shift institutional form and become more nuanced as societies modernize, even as the underlying function persists. This study examines the connection between southern lynching and housing segregation. We argue that legal, political, social and demographic changes in the south made lynching dysfunctional as a means of control. Amo…
The Relationship Between Skin Tone and School Suspension for African Americans
Vision verbs dominate in conversation across cultures, but the ranking of non-visual verbs varies
To what extent does perceptual language reflect universals of experience and cognition, and to what extent is it shaped by particular cultural preoccupations? This paper investigates the universality~relativity of perceptual language by examining the use of basic perception terms in spontaneous conversation across 13 diverse languages and cultures. We analyze the frequency of perception words to test two universalist hypotheses: that sight is alw…
Just Skin Deep? The Impact of Interviewer Race on the Assessment of African American Respondent Skin Tone
Serial verb constructions and their subtypes in Avatime
Preview this article: Serial verb constructions and their subtypes in Avatime, Page 1 of 1 /docserver/preview/fulltext/sl.40.3.07def-1.gif
Do serial verb constructions describe single events
Social status attainment and racial category selection in the contemporary United States
Reliability Concerns in Measuring Respondent Skin Tone by Interviewer Observation
The current study assesses the intercoder reliability of one of the most important skin tone measurement instruments-the Massey-Martin scale. This scale is used in several high-profile social surveys, but has not yet been psychometrically evaluated. The current evaluation is only possible because, for the first time, the General Social Survey's 2010-2014 panel used the instrument to guide interviewers' skin tone observation of the same respondent…
Do serial verb constructions describe single events
Serial verb constructions have often been said to refer to single conceptual events. However, evidence to support this claim has been elusive. This article introduces co-speech gestures as a new way of investigating the relationship. The alignment patterns of gestures with serial verb constructions and other complex clauses were compared in Avatime (Ka-Togo, Kwa, Niger-Congo). Serial verb constructions tended to occur with single gestures overlap…
Racial Rigidity in the United States
Previous articleNext article FreeCommentary and DebateRacial Rigidity in the United States: Comment on Saperstein and Penner1Rory Kramer, Robert DeFina, and Lance HannonRory KramerVillanova University Search for more articles by this author , Robert DeFinaVillanova University Search for more articles by this author , and Lance HannonVillanova University Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUSFull TextSupplemental Material Add to favor…
The Reliability of Same-Race and Cross-Race Skin Tone Judgments
Do White People See Variation in Black Skin Tones? Reexamining a Purported Outgroup Homogeneity Effect
Previous research has reported that white survey interviewers remember black respondents’ skin tones in a much narrower range than recollections by black interviewers. This finding has been used to suggest that, in line with the one-drop rule, whites do not perceive meaningful differences between light- and dark-skinned black people. The authors reanalyze evidence thought to demonstrate relative homogeneity in white interviewers’ evaluation of bl…
They Talk Muṯumuṯu
Vowel elision is common in Pitjantjatjara and Yankunytjatjara connected speech. It also appears to be a locus of language change, with young people extending elision to new contexts; resulting in a distinctive style of speech which speakers refer to as muṯumuṯu (‘short’ speech). This study examines the productions of utterance-final past tense suffixes /-nu, -ɳu, -ŋu/ by four older and four younger Pitjantjatjara speakers in spontaneous speech. T…
Analyzing polysemiosis
Human communication is by default polysemiotic : it involves the spontaneous combination of two or more semiotic systems , the most important ones being language , gesture , and depiction . We formulate an original cognitive-semiotic framework for the analysis of polysemiosis, contrasting this with more familiar systems based on the ambiguous term “multimodality.” To be fully explicit, we developed a coding system for the analysis of polysemiotic…
A comparative study of child-directed language across five cultures based on data from the Acquisition Sketch Project
Special Issue: In Memory of Barbara F. Kelly
Children’s verbal inflection development in Pitjantjatjara
Psychology (17 works) · Sociology (11 works) · Linguistics (8 works) · Computer Science (7 works) · Economics (7 works) · Gender Studies (7 works) · Gender Studies (7 works) · Social Psychology (7 works) · Crime Patterns and Interventions (6 works) · Philosophy (6 works)