American media contributes significantly to popular culture, societal values, and perceptions not only within the United States but also globally. As society has evolved, representation in media has become increasingly important. Unfortunately, misinformation and biases remain widespread and have led to biases and prejudice against certain groups such as Muslims. Thus, this thesis delves into Muslim misrepresentation in American cinema since the events of September 11, 2001. Through a comprehensive content analysis of several films via "The Riz Test" and previous studies, this thesis aims to uncover patterns and themes in the narrative and address questions about how portrayals of Muslims have changed over time and how contemporary films attempt to disengage from stereotypes. This paper shows that films released after 2017 have offered a more favorable view of Muslims, but there is still a lot of work to be done in order to ensure nuanced and complex portrayals.

The dissertation investigates the applicability of Cinque’s (1999) functional hierarchy hypothesis to adverb(ial)s in Iraqi Arabic. Cinque’s functional hierarchy is a hypothesis developed to predict adverb ordering statement in Italian and with its multiple versions, Cinque advocates the universality of his hypothesis. The investigation specifically explores two questions, is an adverb a separate part of speech Arabic? And do adverb(ial)s in Iraqi Arabic follow a rigid ordering statement similar to that suggested by Cinque’s? I argue in my investigation that the term adverb is still vague to Arab linguists, hence I adopt the term adveb(ial)s throughout my dissertation. While the two terms in English are quite distinct, I think, Arabic grammarians are far from settling the debate over considering it a separate part of speech. Certainly, the case is the same for Iraqi Arabic which is the vernacular I am investigating. As I turn to English, I discuss the two most recent hypotheses of adverb ordering. I review Cinque’s functional hierarchy as a syntactic-based hypothesis and Ernst’s scope theory which is a semantic-based hypothesis. While the two hypotheses are valid to predict adverb placement and ordering, I only test Cinque’s hierarchy in my investigation of the ordering in Iraqi Arabic. In my research, I rely on Zyman’s (2012) research on adverbs in English as I utilize many of his examples and translate them to Iraqi Arabic. I suggest that Adverb(ial)s in Iraqi Arabic are in the Spec of a functional head in accordance with the Cinquian hierarchy. Generally, this claim has its roots in Baker’s (1985) Mirror principle which configures the relationship between morphology and syntax. My test of Iraqi Arabic proves that Cinque’s modal is not fully applicable to Iraqi Arabic as adverbs tied to non-spinal constituents do not comply with Cinque’s rigid ordering. The data and the finding in this dissertation will contribute to the Arabic language research on the interplay between syntax, semantics and morphology. Additionally, the findings will shed light on other vernaculars in Arabic as more research is needed on the different varieties of Arabic.

Do certain refugee groups better adapt and assimilate into society in Arizona? If this is the case, which factors contribute to this better rate of assimilation and what can other groups do to better assimilate into American society? Examining data from the Department of Economic Security and the Office of Refugee Resettlement, this study examined trends in refugee resettlement in Arizona. Specifically, trends involving socialization, employment, and education were examined. In addition to analyzing governmental data, this study involved the surveying of local refugees at random in order to gather data regarding the relationship between refugees' home countries and assimilation rates. This study finds evidence that there is indeed a correlation between refugees' geographical origin and their overall rate of assimilation. In order to determine this relationship, survey responses involving a variety of aspects of life in America were quantified. Specifically, this study showed that refugees from Latin America and the Middle East tend to assimilate better than those from Africa and other regions.