This thesis is a literary linguistic study of lexical innovation in fiction. It uses corpus linguistic methods and concepts of morphological theory to develop a new word typology and to examine new words as to their role in directing a reader's imagination and with regard to their frequency and distribution in classic English literature between 1750 and 1923. A 56 million word corpus consisting of a homogenous variety of texts converted from online literature databases serves as the basis for a chronologically structured new word extraction. This is carried out aided by the concordancer programme AntConc. The following three aspects are addressed in this research. The first attempts to explain why certain new words appear newer than other equally novel forms. It demonstrates that the factors influencing a word's novelty effect are wordlike-ness, morpheme content, and formal and semantic analogy. A new word typology is derived from these. A second main section focuses on stylistic aspects. If the words we use influence the way we think, as theorised in the principle of linguistic relativity, then forming new words and reading these should influence the way we think about what they describe. The second element identifies the strategies authors may use to affect their readers' associations through word formation. A third section is a frequency and distribution analysis of the new words extracted, taking historical developments, text mode and form, genre, and new word types into account. It adds quantitative data to the qualitative investigation preceding it, showing that verse and prose, text forms, and genres as well as time periods differ in the new words they produce and providing evidence for the characteristics of each.

Three different English translations of Lao She’s (老舍) Luotuo Xiangzi (骆驼祥子) were marketed in the USA from 1945 to 2005. What are the major historical occurrences and trends from the late 19th to the early 21st century that define the contexts of these translations? Beginning with an analysis of the stylistic features of each translation, the present study explores how each of the three translators and the corresponding historical context impacted on the production of the translated text, its marketing orientation and its reception in the USA. With a comparison of the three translated texts and their meta-textual features, the study seeks to reveal the attitude of each translator and their translation strategies, which are, to a large extent, decreed by their historical times. The first translation Rickshaw Boy (1945) was a market success because it met the requirement of popular fiction and echoed the prevailing preconception about China immediately after the WWII. The second translation Rickshaw (1979) was an academic production associated with the revival of Sino-US diplomacy in the 1970s. The third translation Camel Xiangzi (1981), which was produced in China but published in both China and the USA, originated from China’s wish to be better known by the world; while the reprint of Camel Xiangzi in 2005 by a Hong Kong publisher represented a new era when Chinese cultural products were turned into profitable commodities in the global cultural market. The production and circulation of the three translations can be studied as historical texts themselves. The three translations, which are connected to all the great events since WWII, show the change of the Chinese image in the American media. They also shed light on the evolution of Chinese literary studies in American academia, which has gradually become an independent discipline during the same period.

This thesis seeks to examine the translation of selected foreign film-titles in Hong Kong and Taiwan from 1990 to 2002. Lawrence Venuti’s theory on “domesticating translation” and “foreignizing translation” will be taken as the conceptual framework for the study. Building on Friedrich Schleiermacher’s perspective on translation and on his observations about the Anglo-American publishing industry, Venuti asserts that “foreignizing translation”, being a strategy to bring the target-text audience toward the original text, should be preferred over “domesticating translation” as the former would guarantee difference by introducing foreign elements to the text recipients. By doing so, people will have more chances to be exposed to cultures other than their own and thus a heterogeneous society will be formed and maintained. Since Venuti’s study has not touched upon the Asian region situated in the periphery of global culture as opposed to the Anglo-American one, his suggestion for “foreignizing translation” might not be feasible globally. Selected film-titles will be examined in this thesis. Data show that most of the translated titles in Hong Kong are domesticated. The same can be said of Taiwan in recent years, though to a lesser extent. Unlike other text types, film-titles are normally translated or adapted by the local film distributors rather than professionally or academically trained translators. With box-office sales as the major concern of the movie business, the adoption of the domesticating strategy can easily be rationalized, if not justified. Equally notable is the fact that, as recent trend in Taiwan demonstrates, domesticating strategy also reflects a stronger sense of local identity.

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The onset of the COVID-19 crisis in March 2020 gave way to a precipitous transition to online learning in colleges and universities across the globe. Learners and teachers alike were forced to adapt to new procedures and norms within a matter of days. Among the many questions regarding the development of rigorous courses that can adequately replace face-to-face learning, there was a need to examine and understand the complex ties between identity and second language (L2) classroom discourse in the ever-expanding sphere of online learning. Thorne et al.’s (2015) study demonstrates that there is a considerable body of work that sheds light on the role of L2 identity in online contexts, with some studies focusing on platforms that are not entirely synchronous but that contain synchronous capabilities (Thorne et al., 2015). Despite this, few studies have focused on the manifestation of learner identity using exclusively synchronous video communication for L2 instructional purposes in educational contexts.The present study aims to fill this gap in the literature on L2 identity in synchronous online courses that utilize video web conferencing platforms using qualitative methodological approaches. This study relied on data from one-on-one interviews with five focal participants, classroom transcripts, and weekly written reflections to demonstrate relationships between recurring themes in their data to theoretical constructs that were relevant to the research questions being examined. The theoretical constructs that were used to interpret the data were activity theory (Engeström, 1987, 2001), Lave and Wenger’s theory of communities of practice (Lave & Wenger, 1991; Wenger, 1998), and Norton’s theories of identity and imagined communities (Norton-Peirce, 1995; Norton, 2000, 2001, 2013; Norton & Toohey, 2011). Activity Theory was used to understand how learners made use of the affordances of the online classroom to accomplish their individual goals of learning about Spanish linguistics. The communities of practice (CoP) framework was used to examine how learners negotiated their identities within this community and how their identity or role within the online classroom community impacted their participation. Regarding investment and imagined communities, this research focused on how learners were able to draw connections between class activities and their personal and professional goals. Theoretical and practical implications for this study outline how instructors can constructively negotiate the use of technological affordances for communication in the online classroom to meet the learning goals of their courses. / Spanish

This dissertation is three interlinked studies that pilot new methods for combining corpus linguistics and semantic network analysis (SNA) to understand and teach academic language. Findings indicate that this approach leads to a deeper understanding of technical writing and offers an exciting new avenue for writing curriculum.<br><br>The first phase is a corpus study of fixed and variable formulaic language (n-grams and p-frames) in academic engineering writing. The results were analyzed functionally, semantically and rhetorically. In contrast to previous n-gram analyses, the p-frame analysis found that variable phrases are often participant-oriented and communicate author stance. <br><br>The second phase combined corpus and network analysis tools to create educational materials. Several elements of successful design were highlighted. The final phase tested the materials in two classes with fifteen graduate students, finding evidence for the value of this novel approach.<br>

Second language (L2) vocabulary learning is at the core of language learning and use. Studies have shown that native speakers and L2 learners perceive lexical errors as the biggest obstacle in effective communication (Gass & Selinker, 2008). As a result, the learning and teaching of vocabulary must be one of the focal points of L2 learning. This study quantitatively investigates the effectiveness of two vocabulary learning strategies, the keyword method and the visual support method. Using these two strategies, L2 learners can store the word's meaning both visually and linguistically by creating a "dual coding" (Paivio & Desrochers, 1981) of the word. The keyword method is a strategy that utilizes the association of a first language word (a keyword) with the unknown L2 word through the use of a mental image whereas the visual support method is a strategy that utilizes a visual image. In four L2 intact classes over a 6-day treatment period, participants learned 24 Spanish concrete nouns using both the keyword and visual support methods in one of two presentation orders. Using a pre-test, post-test, and delayed post-test design, results indicated that the use of an image, whether mental or visual, increased L2 learners' knowledge of form, meaning, and use of L2 vocabulary. Qualitative analyses of vocabulary notebooks/journals and surveys revealed that participants' preferences for and experiences with each learning method were influenced by individual likes and dislikes of each treatment. Since vocabulary acquisition is such a complex and multi-faceted process (Nation, 2001), educators have the responsibility to implement and encourage the use of various L2 vocabulary teaching and learning strategies. This research thus aims to reveal how an image can be worth a thousand words in the L2 classroom. / Spanish

This critical exploratory study investigates the perceptions and practices of Norwegian lecturers on the implementation of a policy of English as a Medium of Instruction (EMI) at their Higher Education Institution (HEI). It focuses on their attitudes towards English usage, how they have been prepared and cope in the classroom, and looks at their language and pedagogic competences. The socio-cultural context of using English inside and outside the auditorium is explored and leads to questions of Anglo/American influence and Norwegian domain loss. The study is informed by critical Applied Linguistics (CALx), linguistic imperialism and Bourdieu’s theories on social capital and power. It examines teaching through critical pedagogy and Vygotsky’s socio-cultural theory of learning to aid understanding of classroom engagement and communication, and successful learning. This study has been informed by the critical approach to challenge normative assumptions of the use of EMI. Qualitative methods were used to collect data; twenty Norwegian teaching academics were interviewed, of whom five were observed whilst teaching. Careful coding and analysis of the data revealed surprising attitudes and perceptions varying from enthusiasm to anxiety for EMI. The participants generally accepted the top-down decision making by the administration on the increase of EMI and English usage. The influences of globalisation and commodification at HEIs combined with the rapid increase in English usage seem to have led to increased power of the management and bureaucratization. Some participants, mostly from the humanities, felt they lacked voice and agency in the implementation and their preparation for EMI, whilst some from the sciences actively embraced English and some wanted English as the working language in HEIs. There was a general feeling that more time and language resources were needed for professional development to cope with the change to EMI. All the participants worked hard to succeed in EMI; they were aiming at NS language competencies and wanted to be better at grammar, pronunciation and terminology, but seemed unaware of the pragmatic level of communication required for teaching and did not recognise the necessity of pedagogic training for EMI. There was a lack of dialogic teaching making co-constructed learning challenging and transformative pedagogy more difficult to achieve. They adapted to the multi-cultural/lingual classroom in a pragmatic manner, but were not given spaces for counter-pedagogies, critical pedagogy and the ideals of the transformative intellectual. The research reveals five areas of concern: a) inadequate English language at the pragmatic level for the demands of EMI, b) inadequate pedagogic skills for the multi-lingual and cultural classroom, c) concern over local and international students’ level of English, d) standardized, Anglo/American teaching materials leading to a lack of diversity and critical approaches, and e) the threat to academic Norwegian from international academics not learning Norwegian, the publishing reward system at Norwegian HEIs and the perceived status of English, and the resultant decline in dissemination to the general public. However juxtaposed to the above points, most participants experienced the international classroom positively and were well-received by and pleased to be in their academic Community of Practice resulting generally in an ambivalent attitude to EMI.

Motivated primarily by a cognitive approach, with consideration of interactional processes from a sociocultural perspective, the present study examined the use of linguistic assistance and peer interaction to facilitate second language (L2) writing of young ESL learners. A total of 257 Year 5 children (age 10) from twelve intact classes (from six different schools) took part in this eight-week intervention-based study. Using a quasi-experimental design, the classes were randomly assigned to one of three treatment groups or the control group. Pretests, interim tests, immediate posttests and delayed posttests were administered. As the study concerned both the processes and products of L2 development, peer interaction and children's written production were taken as the two primary sources of data for this study. For the written production, four criteria were used to rate learners’ writings: Quality of ideas, Story shape and structure, Vocabulary and spelling and Implicit grammar. Partial correlation was employed to examine if there were any statistical relationships between treatment and learners’ written performance while controlling for prior attainment. Results show that the provision of enhanced and basic linguistic assistance may have a positive influence on only certain aspects of L2 writing, while opportunities for peer interaction does not appear to have an impact on learners’ L2 performance. For peer interaction, a subset of 60 learners were selected from the two treatment groups which received basic and enhanced linguistic assistance, to compare their dialogic performance. Based on quantitative analyses of their recorded interactions, the findings suggest that the provision of varying degrees of linguistic assistance may affect, not the content of peer discussions, but how peer assistance is given during task. The results also show that through the provision of linguistic assistance, peer interaction mediates the participants’ performance on Quality of ideas, Story shape and structure and Implicit grammar in their subsequent individual writing.

Vocabulary is well acknowledged as playing a critical role in language and reading development for young children, particularly for children learning English as an Additional Language (EAL) in school (Scarborough, 2001; Stahl & Nagy, 2005). However, most previous research on vocabulary has focused on measuring individual words and failed to examine knowledge of multi-word phrases, despite corpus evidence that these items are common in the English lexicon (Erman & Warren, 2000). The nature of multi-word vocabulary knowledge and its possible contribution to literacy skills among children remains underexplored, possibly due to a lack of available suitable measures. The current thesis details the development and administration of an original multi-word phrase task containing transparent, semi-transparent and non-transparent verb + object phrases to 108 British monolingual English speakers and learners with EAL in school years 3, 4 and 5. Results showed a strong effect of item transparency, even greater than frequency. Year 4 monolingual English speakers had significantly higher scores than year 3 monolingual learners on non-transparent items, while among learners with EAL year 3 and 4 performances were similar and year 5 learners’ scores were significantly higher. The second phase of the study explored the contribution of multi-word phrase knowledge to reading among 40 year 4 monolingual English speaking children and Bengali speakers with EAL. Multiple regression analysis showed that multi-word task performance accounted for a significant amount of variance in reading scores, when controlling for non-verbal intelligence, receptive and expressive single word vocabulary and language background. These findings are of import for increasing our understanding of vocabulary development among young learners and provide insight into the particular needs of learners with EAL.