{"id":788,"date":"2025-04-12T21:09:03","date_gmt":"2025-04-12T21:09:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sites.rutgers.edu\/themallab\/?p=788"},"modified":"2025-04-12T21:14:48","modified_gmt":"2025-04-12T21:14:48","slug":"chenyu-feng-successfully-defends-her-honors-thesis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.rutgers.edu\/themallab\/chenyu-feng-successfully-defends-her-honors-thesis\/","title":{"rendered":"Chenyu Feng successfully defends her honors thesis"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>We are excited to share that our undergraduate lab member, Chenyu Feng, has successfully defended her Senior Honors Thesis, titled &#8216;At-Issue or Not? QUD-sensitivity of Iconic Co-speech Gestures&#8217; (abstract below). In the upcoming academic year, Chenyu will continue her research at Rutgers while also taking on the role of MAL Lab manager. Congratulations, Chenyu! \ud83c\udf89<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><strong>Information about Chenyu&#8217;s Honors Thesis:<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Title: <\/strong>At-Issue or Not? QUD-sensitivity of Iconic Co-speech Gestures<\/p>\n<p><b>Advisor: <\/b><a href=\"https:\/\/ling.rutgers.edu\/people-mainmenu-137\/faculty\/faculty-details\/485-dorothy-ahn\">Dorothy Ahn<\/a><\/p>\n<div><b>Abstract:\u00a0<\/b><span style=\"font-size: 1rem\">This study explores how iconic co-speech gestures contribute to the semantic meaning of <\/span><span style=\"font-size: 1rem\">a sentence, particularly in relation to the Question Under Discussion (QUD). Traditionally, <\/span><span style=\"font-size: 1rem\">gestures have been considered secondary, providing background information that is not-at-issue. <\/span><span style=\"font-size: 1rem\">However, this research proposes that gestures can become at-issue when they directly address <\/span><span style=\"font-size: 1rem\">the QUD. An experiment was conducted to investigate whether gestures alone can su\ufb00iciently <\/span><span style=\"font-size: 1rem\">address a QUD and whether gestural content that answers the QUD is perceived as at-issue. The <\/span><span style=\"font-size: 1rem\">results show that gestures can function as primary communicative tools when relevant to the <\/span><span style=\"font-size: 1rem\">discussion topic, receiving high ratings for naturalness and negatability. The findings support a <\/span><span style=\"font-size: 1rem\">gradient interpretation of gestures, suggesting that their interpretation depends on contextual <\/span><span style=\"font-size: 1rem\">factors such as relevance to the QUD and integration with verbal content.<\/span><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>We are excited to share that our undergraduate lab member, Chenyu Feng, has successfully defended her Senior Honors Thesis, titled &#8216;At-Issue or Not? QUD-sensitivity of Iconic Co-speech Gestures&#8217; (abstract below). &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/sites.rutgers.edu\/themallab\/chenyu-feng-successfully-defends-her-honors-thesis\/\" class=\"\">Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":441,"featured_media":789,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[35,30,31],"class_list":["post-788","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-cf","tag-defense","tag-undergraduate"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.5 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Chenyu Feng successfully defends her honors thesis - The Meaning Across Languages Lab<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/sites.rutgers.edu\/themallab\/chenyu-feng-successfully-defends-her-honors-thesis\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Chenyu Feng successfully defends her honors thesis - The Meaning Across Languages Lab\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"We are excited to share that our undergraduate lab member, Chenyu Feng, has successfully defended her Senior Honors Thesis, titled &#8216;At-Issue or Not? QUD-sensitivity of Iconic Co-speech Gestures&#8217; (abstract below). &hellip; Read More\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/sites.rutgers.edu\/themallab\/chenyu-feng-successfully-defends-her-honors-thesis\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"The Meaning Across Languages Lab\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2025-04-12T21:09:03+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2025-04-12T21:14:48+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/sites.rutgers.edu\/themallab\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/1022\/2025\/04\/cf-da-scaled.jpeg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"2560\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"1920\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Ziling Zhu\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Ziling Zhu\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"1 minute\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/sites.rutgers.edu\/themallab\/chenyu-feng-successfully-defends-her-honors-thesis\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/sites.rutgers.edu\/themallab\/chenyu-feng-successfully-defends-her-honors-thesis\/\",\"name\":\"Chenyu Feng successfully defends her honors thesis - The Meaning Across Languages Lab\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/sites.rutgers.edu\/themallab\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/sites.rutgers.edu\/themallab\/chenyu-feng-successfully-defends-her-honors-thesis\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/sites.rutgers.edu\/themallab\/chenyu-feng-successfully-defends-her-honors-thesis\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/sites.rutgers.edu\/themallab\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/1022\/2025\/04\/cf-da-scaled.jpeg\",\"datePublished\":\"2025-04-12T21:09:03+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2025-04-12T21:14:48+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/sites.rutgers.edu\/themallab\/#\/schema\/person\/a2511b600d9a04ccd15e5ae7a320d58f\"},\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/sites.rutgers.edu\/themallab\/chenyu-feng-successfully-defends-her-honors-thesis\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/sites.rutgers.edu\/themallab\/chenyu-feng-successfully-defends-her-honors-thesis\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/sites.rutgers.edu\/themallab\/chenyu-feng-successfully-defends-her-honors-thesis\/#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/sites.rutgers.edu\/themallab\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/1022\/2025\/04\/cf-da-scaled.jpeg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/sites.rutgers.edu\/themallab\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/1022\/2025\/04\/cf-da-scaled.jpeg\",\"width\":2560,\"height\":1920,\"caption\":\"Chenyu and Dorothy at Senior Honors Thesis Defense\"},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/sites.rutgers.edu\/themallab\/chenyu-feng-successfully-defends-her-honors-thesis\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/sites.rutgers.edu\/themallab\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Chenyu Feng successfully defends her honors thesis\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/sites.rutgers.edu\/themallab\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/sites.rutgers.edu\/themallab\/\",\"name\":\"The Meaning Across Languages Lab\",\"description\":\"\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/sites.rutgers.edu\/themallab\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":{\"@type\":\"PropertyValueSpecification\",\"valueRequired\":true,\"valueName\":\"search_term_string\"}}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/sites.rutgers.edu\/themallab\/#\/schema\/person\/a2511b600d9a04ccd15e5ae7a320d58f\",\"name\":\"Ziling Zhu\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/sites.rutgers.edu\/themallab\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/0be769900deb30e022f734e22ab3de13?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/0be769900deb30e022f734e22ab3de13?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"caption\":\"Ziling Zhu\"},\"url\":\"https:\/\/sites.rutgers.edu\/themallab\/author\/zz401\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Chenyu Feng successfully defends her honors thesis - The Meaning Across Languages Lab","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/sites.rutgers.edu\/themallab\/chenyu-feng-successfully-defends-her-honors-thesis\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Chenyu Feng successfully defends her honors thesis - The Meaning Across Languages Lab","og_description":"We are excited to share that our undergraduate lab member, Chenyu Feng, has successfully defended her Senior Honors Thesis, titled &#8216;At-Issue or Not? QUD-sensitivity of Iconic Co-speech Gestures&#8217; (abstract below). &hellip; Read More","og_url":"https:\/\/sites.rutgers.edu\/themallab\/chenyu-feng-successfully-defends-her-honors-thesis\/","og_site_name":"The Meaning Across Languages Lab","article_published_time":"2025-04-12T21:09:03+00:00","article_modified_time":"2025-04-12T21:14:48+00:00","og_image":[{"width":2560,"height":1920,"url":"https:\/\/sites.rutgers.edu\/themallab\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/1022\/2025\/04\/cf-da-scaled.jpeg","type":"image\/jpeg"}],"author":"Ziling Zhu","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Ziling Zhu","Est. reading time":"1 minute"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/sites.rutgers.edu\/themallab\/chenyu-feng-successfully-defends-her-honors-thesis\/","url":"https:\/\/sites.rutgers.edu\/themallab\/chenyu-feng-successfully-defends-her-honors-thesis\/","name":"Chenyu Feng successfully defends her honors thesis - The Meaning Across Languages Lab","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/sites.rutgers.edu\/themallab\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/sites.rutgers.edu\/themallab\/chenyu-feng-successfully-defends-her-honors-thesis\/#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/sites.rutgers.edu\/themallab\/chenyu-feng-successfully-defends-her-honors-thesis\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/sites.rutgers.edu\/themallab\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/1022\/2025\/04\/cf-da-scaled.jpeg","datePublished":"2025-04-12T21:09:03+00:00","dateModified":"2025-04-12T21:14:48+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/sites.rutgers.edu\/themallab\/#\/schema\/person\/a2511b600d9a04ccd15e5ae7a320d58f"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/sites.rutgers.edu\/themallab\/chenyu-feng-successfully-defends-her-honors-thesis\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/sites.rutgers.edu\/themallab\/chenyu-feng-successfully-defends-her-honors-thesis\/"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/sites.rutgers.edu\/themallab\/chenyu-feng-successfully-defends-her-honors-thesis\/#primaryimage","url":"https:\/\/sites.rutgers.edu\/themallab\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/1022\/2025\/04\/cf-da-scaled.jpeg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/sites.rutgers.edu\/themallab\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/1022\/2025\/04\/cf-da-scaled.jpeg","width":2560,"height":1920,"caption":"Chenyu and Dorothy at Senior Honors Thesis Defense"},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/sites.rutgers.edu\/themallab\/chenyu-feng-successfully-defends-her-honors-thesis\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/sites.rutgers.edu\/themallab\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Chenyu Feng successfully defends her honors thesis"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/sites.rutgers.edu\/themallab\/#website","url":"https:\/\/sites.rutgers.edu\/themallab\/","name":"The Meaning Across Languages Lab","description":"","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/sites.rutgers.edu\/themallab\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/sites.rutgers.edu\/themallab\/#\/schema\/person\/a2511b600d9a04ccd15e5ae7a320d58f","name":"Ziling Zhu","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/sites.rutgers.edu\/themallab\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/0be769900deb30e022f734e22ab3de13?s=96&d=mm&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/0be769900deb30e022f734e22ab3de13?s=96&d=mm&r=g","caption":"Ziling Zhu"},"url":"https:\/\/sites.rutgers.edu\/themallab\/author\/zz401\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.rutgers.edu\/themallab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/788"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.rutgers.edu\/themallab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.rutgers.edu\/themallab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.rutgers.edu\/themallab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/441"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.rutgers.edu\/themallab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=788"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/sites.rutgers.edu\/themallab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/788\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":798,"href":"https:\/\/sites.rutgers.edu\/themallab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/788\/revisions\/798"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.rutgers.edu\/themallab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/789"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.rutgers.edu\/themallab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=788"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.rutgers.edu\/themallab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=788"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.rutgers.edu\/themallab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=788"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}