Identity is not fixed but rather performed through interactions. The eminent philosopher and gender theorist, Judith Butler famously investigates performativity in her research on gender. Butler asserts that “gender is not a performance that a prior subject elects to do, but gender is performative in the sense that it constitutes as an effect the very subject it appears to express” (314, emphasis original). She believes that gender identity is performative because it constitutes itself though actions, gestures, and speech. This project seeks to investigate the performative nature of roller derby personas, highlighting the identities of the characters in the movie Whip It and the comic series “Slam!” to help students learn to perform an academic identity in writing. Reading roller derby texts through the lens of performativity can be a useful pedagogical tool because it helps students see that a writer’s identity can be carefully crafted into an academic persona. In this project, I examine these texts to discover how roller derby personas are constructed and performed. The texts introduce freshmeat skaters to roller derby and explore how their new derby persona is negotiated and informed by the derby community. By creating a new persona, the characters are able to constitute it through their performance. Students in First Year Composition are undergoing a similar process to the freshmeat skaters: they are learning to craft an academic identity when they enter the university. Ultimately, a performative academic identity can lead to greater agency both in and out of the classroom because it helps students take a stance and control their performance as writers.

The construct of academic language—while of great interest, in part, because of recently adopted or revised content and English-language development (ELD) standards that explicitly focus on academic language—and its role in the academic success of all students, including young learners and English learners (ELs), is far from clearly understood. Nowhere is the issue of the construct of academic language more contested than in the locus where many students are formally introduced to schooling in the United States; that is, in kindergarten classrooms. Kindergarten is many students’ formal introduction to public education in the United States, and this includes ELs, who represent a growing percentage of students in U.S. schools. Indeed, about 16% of kindergarteners in the country are classified as ELs (U.S. Department of Education, 2019a). Beginning at the kindergarten level, academic language is a primary focus of College and Career Readiness (CCR) standards, such as the Common Core State Standards (CCSS), which require students to engage in cognitively and linguistically complex academic practices (van Lier & Walqui, 2012). Similarly, ELD standards in the U.S. have recently been written anew or revised to correspond to the ambitious CCR standards, and, therefore, English language proficiency (ELP) expectations inherent in the ELD standards have become more rigorous as well. A hallmark of both ELD standards and CCR standards is a predominant focus on academic language. Yet consensus is lacking on what academic language is, exactly, and how it is operationalized in classrooms; some researchers argue that the construct of academic language may not even exist as it is currently conceptualized (e.g., Bunch, 2014; Gutiérrez et al., 2011; Valdés, 2004). In this study, I provide a description of classroom language usage in formal literacy contexts in kindergarten, inclusive of ELs, through a qualitative analysis of language use at the lexical, syntactic, and discoursal levels in academic literacy events. Additionally, I investigate whether students’ degree of exposure to academic language in kindergarten, language status, prior exposure to formal classroom contexts, gender, and age are related to academic language proficiency at the end of one academic year and when controlling for beginning-of-year academic language knowledge. Qualitative analyses illustrated that, while classroom discourse contained a relatively small percentage of lexically and syntactically complex language, students were exposed to a wide range of language during formal literacy events, from high-frequency to low-frequency (sophisticated) words, and from syntactically simple to complex utterances, across a variety of language functions aligned with the state’s literacy standards, both within and across classrooms. Greater amounts of sophisticated words and syntactically complex structures were present during shared reading activities specifically and, to a lesser degree, during foundational literacy activities. Exemplars from qualitative analyses illustrated that common, high-frequency words and simple syntactic structures were, at times, employed to present and discuss academic language and concepts and also employed, at times, as an instructional support for some ELs. Lessons that featured language functions related to the reading strand of the literacy standards and, to a lesser degree, the foundational literacy skills strand, afforded opportunities for sophisticated vocabulary and complex syntax. At this formative grade, then, the use of common, high-frequency words and simple syntax in service of teaching academic vocabulary and academic concepts during shared reading and other literacy activities was characteristic of the classrooms observed. Quantitative analyses indicated a significant relationship between academic language proficiency, as measured by a standardized language proficiency assessment, and language status, gender, and academic language exposure. However, when controlling for students’ beginning-of-year academic language proficiency (operationalized as their pretest scores), the relationship between academic language proficiency and academic language exposure in the classroom was no longer significant. In consideration of both qualitative and quantitative results, then, minimal exposure to academic language may not be sufficient to promote academic language proficiency. I recommend that literacy instruction could be enhanced to maximize exposure to and productive use of sophisticated words and syntactically complex language, as appropriate for kindergarten ELs and EOs, and in consideration of their developing language proficiency. Findings contribute to a more comprehensive understanding of the language used in academic literacy contexts as instantiated in kindergarten classrooms, and begin to explore under what linguistic conditions all students, ELs and EOs, can more readily develop academic language proficiency in the earliest of elementary grades. / Applied Linguistics

The new world of academic discourse is complex and necessitates that L1 and L2 graduate students learn a multiplicity of texts, master intertextuality, and actively participate in emerging literacies or genres of their disciplines (Molle & Prior, 2008; Swales, 2004; Warren, 2013). Challenges arise about how doctoral students produce, interpret, and learn texts and genres, and how they act and react around text production in particular multicultural institutional contexts (Hyland, 2000; Prior, 2004). Little is known about how students, particularly those in higher education, establish intertextual connections among different modes of texts (e.g., written, oral, visual) for actively engaging in literacy (Belcher & Hirvela, 2008; Seloni, 2012). The purpose of this study is to examine how L1 and L2 doctoral students use intertextual practices to create meaning and develop their academic literacies during the literacy events of Global Conversations and Literacy Research (GCLR) web seminars. Drawing upon microethnographic discourse analysis, more particularly the constructs of intertextuality (Bloome, & Carter, 2013), I investigate the following questions a) How are the L1 and L2 students engaged in intertextual practices in the literacy events of GCLR web seminars? b) How does the use of intertextuality contribute to L1 and L2 students’ academic literacies? The participants are two L1 and two L2 doctoral students, who are also multilinguals, had different first languages (i.e., Korean, English, Chinese), and actively engaged in the GCLR web seminars. Data drew upon interviews, chat transcriptions, video recordings of the web seminars, and visuals. Data collection and analyses began in September 2014, and continued through November 2015. Microethnographic discourse analysis showed how participants constructed intertextual connections during the literacy events of the GCLR web seminars. The findings show how L1 and L2 doctoral students used intertextuality to socialize into academic discourse, mediate discoursal identities, and develop cultural models. The study has implications for L1 and L2 pedagogy, multilingual’s learning, and research: Future research should investigate academic literacies with intertextual connections to oral, written, and online discourses. Educators and graduate students are encouraged to exploit the full potential of intertextuality through metacognition in emerging academic literacies and mediated discoursal identities.

The object of this dissertation is hedging in Lithuanian and English research articles in the field of humanities and biomedical sciences. The aim of the research is to identify hedging devices and functions in linguistic and medical research articles in Lithuanian and English and to explore to what extent hedging is language-specific and discipline-specific. As there is a great variety of linguistic resources which convey the pragmatic function of hedging, this research is limited to certain lexical hedges: modal verbs, lexical verbs and adverbials, which are analysed within the conceptual categories of epistemic modality, evidentiality and vagueness. The results of the research suggest that the variety of hedging devices is determined by the discipline, whereas the type of the most frequent lexical hedges depends on the language (English vs. Lithuanian). The frequency of hedges used in the analyzed research articles depends both on the language and discipline. The results of the cross-disciplinary research show that both Lithuanian and English authors of medical texts tend to use fewer hedges than linguists. The variety of hedges employed in the analyzed articles of both disciplines is also different. In both Lithuanian and English linguistic articles a greater variety of hedges has been observed. The results of the cross-linguistic research indicate that according to the main parameters of the analysis, the English authors of the analyzed research articles employ hedges... [to full text] / Disertacijoje tiriamas autoriaus pozicijos švelninimas (angl. hedging) humanitarinių mokslų srities (kalbotyros krypties) ir biomedicinos mokslų srities (medicinos krypties) moksliniuose straipsniuose anglų ir lietuvių kalbomis. Disertacijos tikslas – nustatyti sąšvelnių (angl. hedges) vartosenos tendencijas ir raiškos ypatumus kalbotyros ir medicinos straipsniuose lietuvių ir anglų kalbomis bei išsiaiškinti, kokie veiksniai lemia autoriaus pozicijos raišką tyrinėtuose moksliniuose straipsniuose: konkreti mokslo sritis ar labiau kalbos, kultūros ypatumai. Dėl didelės kalbinių vienetų, galinčių atlikti sąšvelnių funkciją, įvairovės šiame darbe apsiribota tik tam tikromis raiškos priemonėmis: modaliniais veiksmažodžiais, leksiniais veiksmažodžiais ir prieveiksmiais bei aplinkybiniais žodžiais, tirtais iš episteminio modalumo, evidencialumo ir neapibrėžtumo kategorijų perspektyvos. Išanalizavus medžiagą, prieita prie tokių išvadų: sąšvelnių vartosenos įvairovė priklauso nuo disciplinos, o dažniausiai pasirenkamos leksinių vienetų grupės – nuo konkrečios kalbos (anglų vs. lietuvių). Sąšvelnių vartosenos dažnį lemia tiek kalba, tiek disciplina. Tarpdalykinio tyrimo rezultatų palyginimas rodo, kad ir lietuviai, ir anglakalbiai medikai vartoja mažiau tirtų kategorijų sąšvelnių nei kalbininkai. Skiriasi ir vartotų sąšvelnių įvairovė: tirtuose kalbotyros straipsniuose abiejomis kalbomis nustatyta įvairesnių sąšvelnių nei medicinos straipsniuose. Tarpkalbinio tyrimo rezultatai parodė... [toliau žr. visą tekstą]

This thesis analysed the variety of views expressed about disparities between Romanian Roma and non-Roma by people who are actively engaged in redressing unjust social and economic differences. The focus was placed on the variability of views between and within three different contexts: academic texts proposing policy measures for addressing disparities between Roma and non-Roma people; policy documents concerning measures for Roma inclusion; and conversations by people involved in the implementation of Roma inclusion policy measures. The general concerns of this study were to identify (1) the ways in which the problem of ethnic disparity was portrayed, (2) the solutions proposed to the problem of ethnic disparity, (3) the ambivalent, dilemmatic or concealed aspects concerning the topic of disparities between Roma and non-Roma people living in Romania, (4) whether the perspectives of Roma people were accounted for in the contexts analyses and (5) the similarities and differences between the discourses of academics, policy makers, practitioners and beneficiaries of public policies concerning disparities. The theoretical foundation for this thesis was offered by the social psychological literature that links disparities between groups of people and racial or ethnic prejudice. There are four ways in which this thesis has contributed to this literature. Firstly, most of the social psychological research on ethnic disparities has been experimental, whereas in this thesis, the focus was on the often overlooked discursive practices concerning ethnic disparities. Secondly, although some of the social psychological literature, especially research on the contact hypothesis and social identity theory, has looked at the dynamic interrelationship between advantaged and disadvantaged group members, most research has focused only on the perspectives of the advantaged group members. Therefore, there remains a research gap in the literature concerning the perspectives presented in inter-ethnic interactions, and even more so, by disadvantaged group members. This thesis added to the analysis the perspectives of advantaged and disadvantaged group members, both separately and in interaction. Thirdly, whereas emergent work looks at the ambivalent views towards ethnic or racial minorities, and the possible ironic effects of prejudice reduction strategies, there is virtually no research about the possible ironic, ambivalent or dilemmatic effects of strategies which target systemic based ethnic disparities - issues explored in this thesis. Finally, most social psychological research focuses on a single context of study, most commonly the public perceptions about members of the disadvantaged groups, but also marginally mass media representations, academic publications or political discourses. This thesis places attention on an equally important area of study concerned with whether and how discourses can move between different domains, and the impact or acknowledgement of elite discourses on the everyday conversations. There are four key findings that emerged from the studies conducted for this thesis. Firstly, it was found that while expressing views about ethnic disparity, academics, policymakers, practitioners and beneficiaries of public policies for Roma people displayed subtle forms of ethnicism. Secondly, a great deal of political discourse was devoted to the encouragement of individual changes in ethnic minorities, without a similar focus on the roles of majority group members in perpetuating inequality. Whereas, the problem of Roma inclusion was acknowledged by academics, policymakers, practitioners and beneficiaries of policy measures, to be a matter for public policies, some of the attribution of responsibility for inclusion was offered to Roma people, who were encouraged to change as individuals in accord with majoritarian norms. Thirdly, the analysis showed the inclusion of the perspectives of ethnic minorities only in two of the three contexts where policy measures for Roma people were proposed and implemented: academic publications and conversations. The perspectives of feminist experts and women were only marginally present in academic publications and conversations, while missing from policy discourses. Also the perspectives of academics or the non-hegemonic voices of excluded or disadvantaged Roma people were largely absent from the arguments presented in policy documents for Roma inclusion. Lastly, this thesis found that there are ambivalence, dilemmas and concealment at work within arguments proposing policy measures for redressing ethnic disparities, with important political consequences. The findings of this thesis contribute to the important conversation about the meanings of disparity and the political solutions for achieving equality between groups of people. Also, the findings of this thesis have important implications for the social psychological theory of disparity, the policies for redressing disparity and the social work practice with disadvantaged group members.

This thesis aims at contributing to the research on academic conference paper presentations, particularly to the discussion sessions that follow them. The main purpose of this study is to explore the speaker's expression of evaluation in the discussion session of two specialised conference paper presentations in Linguistics and Chemistry from a multimodal approach. I set out to investigate evaluation in spoken academic discourse beyond the traditional linguistic approach to foreground the role of kinesics and paralanguage that co-occur with the linguistic expression of evaluation. To meet the objective of the thesis, the theoretical framework was embedded in techniques of genre analysis (Bhatia 1993, Swales 1990) and discourse analysis, including the theoretical orientations of systemic functional linguistics (Halliday 1978, 1985a), conversation analysis (Schegloff & Sack 1973), pragmatics (Brown & Levinson 1978, 1987), and multimodal discourse analysis (Kress & van Leeuwen 2001). This framework allowed me to identify the structure of the interaction, the rhetorical moves in which the interaction is organised, and finally the linguistic and multimodal expression of evaluation that articulates the rhetoric of the interaction.

Disertacijoje tiriamas autoriaus pozicijos švelninimas (angl. hedging) humanitarinių mokslų srities (kalbotyros krypties) ir biomedicinos mokslų srities (medicinos krypties) moksliniuose straipsniuose anglų ir lietuvių kalbomis. Disertacijos tikslas – nustatyti sąšvelnių (angl. hedges) vartosenos tendencijas ir raiškos ypatumus kalbotyros ir medicinos straipsniuose lietuvių ir anglų kalbomis bei išsiaiškinti, kokie veiksniai lemia autoriaus pozicijos raišką tyrinėtuose moksliniuose straipsniuose: konkreti mokslo sritis ar labiau kalbos, kultūros ypatumai. Dėl didelės kalbinių vienetų, galinčių atlikti sąšvelnių funkciją, įvairovės šiame darbe apsiribota tik tam tikromis raiškos priemonėmis: modaliniais veiksmažodžiais, leksiniais veiksmažodžiais ir prieveiksmiais bei aplinkybiniais žodžiais, tirtais iš episteminio modalumo, evidencialumo ir neapibrėžtumo kategorijų perspektyvos. Išanalizavus medžiagą, prieita prie tokių išvadų: sąšvelnių vartosenos įvairovė priklauso nuo disciplinos, o dažniausiai pasirenkamos leksinių vienetų grupės – nuo konkrečios kalbos (anglų vs. lietuvių). Sąšvelnių vartosenos dažnį lemia tiek kalba, tiek disciplina. Tarpdalykinio tyrimo rezultatų palyginimas rodo, kad ir lietuviai, ir anglakalbiai medikai vartoja mažiau tirtų kategorijų sąšvelnių nei kalbininkai. Skiriasi ir vartotų sąšvelnių įvairovė: tirtuose kalbotyros straipsniuose abiejomis kalbomis nustatyta įvairesnių sąšvelnių nei medicinos straipsniuose. Tarpkalbinio tyrimo rezultatai parodė... [toliau žr. visą tekstą] / The object of this dissertation is hedging in Lithuanian and English research articles in the field of humanities and biomedical sciences. The aim of the research is to identify hedging devices and functions in linguistic and medical research articles in Lithuanian and English and to explore to what extent hedging is language-specific and discipline-specific. As there is a great variety of linguistic resources which convey the pragmatic function of hedging, this research is limited to certain lexical hedges: modal verbs, lexical verbs and adverbials, which are analysed within the conceptual categories of epistemic modality, evidentiality and vagueness. The results of the research suggest that the variety of hedging devices is determined by the discipline, whereas the type of the most frequent lexical hedges depends on the language (English vs. Lithuanian). The frequency of hedges used in the analyzed research articles depends both on the language and discipline. The results of the cross-disciplinary research show that both Lithuanian and English authors of medical texts tend to use fewer hedges than linguists. The variety of hedges employed in the analyzed articles of both disciplines is also different. In both Lithuanian and English linguistic articles a greater variety of hedges has been observed. The results of the cross-linguistic research indicate that according to the main parameters of the analysis, the English authors of the analyzed research articles employ hedges... [to full text]

The present study investigates usage variation of politeness markers in spoken academic discourse. The aim of this corpus-based analysis is is twofold. First, it aims at investigating different types of politeness markers in educational settings. Second, the usage of politeness markers in spoken academic discourse is analyzed with respect to general spoken English. The present investigation focuses on different politeness markers randomly selected for the analysis. The politeness markers are categorized into four distinctive types (i.e. indirect requests, apologies, respect markers, and hedges) according to the functions they perform in spoken discourse. / Šis baigiamasis darbas pristato mandagumo žymeklių kalbos variantiškumo analizę sakytiniame akademiniame diskurse, paremtą tekstyno duomenimis. Tyrimo tikslas yra dvejopas: išanalizuoti mandagumo žymeklių kalbos variantiškumą sakytiniame akademiniame diskurse ir palyginti su jų vartosena bendrinėje šnekamojoje anglų kalboje. Analizė atlikta remiantis skirtingais mandagumo žymekliais, atsitiktinai atrinktais ir suskirstytais į skirtingas kategorijas, t.y. netiesioginius prašymus, atsiprašymus, pagarbumo žymeklius ir švelninamuosius žodžius. Mandagumo žymekliai suskirstyti į skirtingus tipus pagal jų atliekamas funkcijas sakytinėje anglų kalboje.

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Thesis (M. Com. (Accountancy))--University of the Witwatersrand, Faculty of Commerce, Law and Management, School of Accountancy, 2014. / This paper reports the findings of an action research intervention designed to explore the student experiences of a lecturer’s role-modelling specific cognitive self-regulated learning (SRL) skills on third year Financial Accounting students’ motivation and strategies for learning. The intervention involved a series of enrichment tutorials with a pilot group of Financial Accounting III students at the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg. A mixed methods research approach was used in the study. Qualitative data was collected in the form of verbal and written feedback from group participants and the lecturer’s research diary. Quantitative data was gathered by means of the Motivated Strategies for Learning Questionnaire (MSLQ), which was used to measure the students’ motivations and strategies for learning before and after the intervention. The intervention involved a lecturer role-modelling specific learning skills through the use of active learning activities. The skills role-modelled focussed on the following MSLQ learning strategies: rehearsal, organisation, elaboration, critical thinking, meta-cognitive self-regulation, and time and study environment management. Results suggest that role-modelling in an active learning environment does help students to implement SRL skills and experience the value of using the skills. Students reported making changes to their learning approaches to Financial Accounting III as a result of the intervention. Additionally the study identified the need for students to be taught the academic discourse of financial accounting within the course content.