The study of vocabulary acquisition is not exactly a new area, but previous research and hypothesizing has failed to produce a coherent overall theory which adequately describes it. This is partly because of the complexity of the subject. One method of reducing the complexity is to work with the individual components of vocabulary knowledge, in an attempt to understand the whole by first better understanding the parts. The word knowledge listing proposed by Nation (1990) is adopted in this thesis as a framework from which to study vocabulary. Chapter 1 introduces the word knowledge framework. Chapter 2 provides a literature review which summarizes the research concerning each of the eight types of word knowledge. Chapter 3 reports on a study which attempts to quantify native and non-native intuitions of word frequency. Chapter 4 describes how a procedure for weighting word association responses was developed. Chapter 5 does the same for a measure of collocational knowledge. Chapter 6 applies the word knowledge research paradigm to the evaluation of the vocabulary items on the TOEFL test. Chapter 7 reports on a longitudinal study of four non-native subjects which tracked their incremental acquisition of spelling, association, collocation, grammar, and meaning knowledge for eleven words over one year. Chapter 8 examines the data from the longitudinal study to see if the various kinds of word knowledge are learned in a developmental sequence. Chapter 9 concludes the thesis by giving the author's opinions about the strengths and weaknesses of the reported course of research.

This thesis examines individual learner characteristics in order to identify those useful as predictors of gifted foreign language learning performance and creativity in secondary school pupil learners. An individual learner might possess a range of learner characteristics which combine to support his or her gifted foreign language performance. Foreign language learning in England is examined in the opening chapter, providing an historical and educational context within which to explore individual learner differences and the notion of gifted foreign language performance. Theories and research findings from the fields of linguistics are scrutinised together with those generated by foreign language education research in chapter two. Additionally, there is an explanation of giftedness and this latter discussion links to chapter three which relates specifically to gifted performance and creativity in foreign language learning. The Good Language Learner research conducted by Naiman, Frohlich, Stern and Todesco offers a template for studying multiple learner characteristics and the pioneering work of Vygotsky introduces a model for the teaching of the gifted. Chapter four presents the subsequent theoretical framework for this research and clearly differentiates between cognitive and affective individual learner characteristics. Specific research questions focus on selected individual learner characteristics, which include: cognitive ability, foreign language aptitude, motivation and attitude in foreign language learning and these are discussed within chapter five. Quantitative methods are used to address the research questions and data is collected from a group of mixed ability secondary school pupils over a three year period. The research tools included standardised tests for ability, memory, and language aptitude and motivation. Creativity tasks and a questionnaire surveying pupil attitude to foreign language learning were designed for the research in this thesis. The quantitative data was processed statistically. Significant results are highlighted and interpreted with reference to the original theoretical framework and this guides the discussion in chapters six and seven respectively. The closing chapter summarises the main research findings and offers a practical strategy for foreign language teaching including guidelines for the identification of gifted foreign language learners. This is juxtaposed with the current challenging circumstances facing schools, brought about by government educational policy which is seeking to improve pupil performance in foreign language learning and to change national attitudes and perceptions to foreign languages and cultures.

This study is a comparative analysis of discourse marking systems in Burmese and in English, using a corpus-based approach within the framework of discourse analysis. The focus of this study is a set of lexical items in a particular word class called 'particles' in Burmese, which lack one-to-one equivalents in English and are characterized by highly context-dependent semantic values. Unlike traditional comparative studies involving less commonly studied languages that tend to base their analyses on the model of well-established linguistic systems such as English, this study is Burmese-originated. It starts out with an identification of discourse functions typically associated with high frequency Burmese particles, and their equivalent realisations in English are subsequently identified. Findings indicate that Burmese particles share common cross-linguistic characteristics of discourse markers as described in the current literature. The data offers clear evidence that discourse functions of Burmese particles investigated are commonly found in spoken English, but they are not realised through the same discourse marking system. This study therefore calls for a more effective comparative methodology that can compare syntactically-oriented discourse marking systems more effectively with lexically-oriented ones, such as in the case of Burmese and English respectively. Last but not least, this study also challenges the notion of 'word' as a unit of analysis for a corpus-based approach, as the notion of word cannot be easily defined in a syllabic language such as Burmese.

The variation in short-term memory capacity between the dominant and less-dominant languages of bilinguals has been explained in terms of a difference in the rate of subvocal rehearsal between the languages. The 11 experiments presented in this thesis examined the effect of factors other than subvocal rehearsal and word length on bilingual short-term memory processes. Experiment 1 found that the language in which bilinguals received schooling influenced memory span for Arabic numerals (e.g., 1, 2, 3, etc.), The findings of Experiments 2 and 3 showed that articulation time did not predict bilingual auditory span for digits or words, whereas Experiment 4 found that articulation time was a reliable predictor of memory span for non words. Taken together, these findings suggested the involvement of non-phonological factors, such as the strength of long-term memory representation and phonotactic knowledge in mediating the bilingual memory span effect. Experiment 5 demonstrated that cognitive demands independent of articulation influenced the processing of numerals. In addition, the finding that memory span for numerals was greater than for digit words (e.g., one. two, three, etc., Experiments 6 & 7) raised fundamental questions regarding the use of inconsistent representations of digits in previous studies of bilingual memory span. A closer examination of the numeral advantage effect (Experiments 8 & 9) suggested that this was partly mediated by a variation in the predisposition toward implicit forms of chunking between numerals and digit words. Finally, the findings of Experiments 10 and 11 suggested that when the level of bilingual fluency is low, differences in the time taken to output recall sequences is an influential factor in determining bilingual memory span. Overall, this thesis questioned the assumptions in the bilingual memory span literature that have given rise to simplistic and incomplete explanations of the factors that moderate bilingual memory span. It was concluded that a greater consideration of long-term semantic and phonotactic factors and their effect on the speed of perceptual processing, subvocal rehearsal, and output delays was necessary to provide a comprehensive account of the determinants of bilingual memory capacity.

This thesis sets out to investigate aspects of the development of phonological awareness in relation to word reading in children aged between 5- and 7-years. The principal aim has been to establish how, for these children, phonological awareness relates to other cognitive factors that might jointly support the development of early reading skills. Data derives from children in their first three years of formal education (aged 5- to 7-years) and a group of partially-hearing children aged 7-years. The children's performance in a measure of categorical speech have been compared with their levels of implicit phonological awareness. The results do not indicate that phonological awareness is significantly associated with children's ability to categorise speech sounds. Following this investigations have been conducted to determine the extent to which implicit phonological awareness is affected by working memory and lexical knowledge. It emerges that memory is implicated in the phonological awareness tasks, but is not a developmental antecedent. The phonological similarity effect is also studied and not found to relate to age or reading ability in hearing or partially-hearing children. Aspects of the working memory model are discussed in relation to children's performance in tests of word recognition and phonological awareness. In the penultimate chapter children's lexical knowledge (vocabulary) is found to interact with their performance in the measure of memory span. It appears that the development of the awareness of initial phonemes may be facilitated by having limited memory processing space. Overall it was found that lexical knowledge was predictive of phonological awareness. This conclusion was supported by a finding that the partially-hearing children had poorer lexical knowledge than younger hearing children with levels of phonological awareness similar to the partially-hearing children. The findings in that chapter also indicate that phonological awareness and lexical knowledge may make separable contributions to word reading. In the final chapter structural equation modelling of 'Reading' is undertaken in order to establish how phonological awareness, memory span and lexical knowledge together relate to word reading. The findings there confirm the covariance of phonological awareness, memory span and lexical knowledge, but also suggest that, in contrast to other research findings, these factors may not always be clearly related to word reading. The study has also elicited some information about the likely difficulties of partially hearing children who were here not found to have good levels of phonological awareness or lexical knowledge. In the final chapter it is suggested that further work should be undertaken to study partially-hearing children to establish how reading develops in the absence of age-appropriate levels of phonological awareness and lexical knowledge.

This study is concerned with the structural analysis of a corpus of discussive data. The data, mainly taken from CANCODE, the Cambridge and Nottingham Corpus of Discourse in English, was taken from a range of situational contexts, along a cline of formality from informal ‘chat’ to public broadcast material. The data was analysed using a version of the Sinclair and Coulthard (1975) model of discourse, which was adapted to deal with spoken discussion, and the resultant analytical framework was described in detail. Previous studies of discussion and argumentation have looked either at intra-turn structure, or at the local management of disagreement between turns. This study aims to provide an overall analysis of the structure of discussion, with a view to elucidating the argumentative and persuasive strategies used by interactants involved in spontaneous spoken discussion. It is argued that discourse acts can be identified through the study of certain lexico-grammatical items which typically realise them, and that both at act level and at move level elements of structure combine to form a type of patterning which is typical to discussive texts. It is further argued that this patterning reflects various aspects of the ‘nature’ of discussion, such as its combativeness, and the way that interpersonal objectives become less important in this type of interaction. Also the emergent nature of opinion in discussion is reflected in interactants’ use of focussing moves and summarising acts, and points of convergence between interactants can be identified through their use of responding moves.

Recent studies of wh-question acquisition have tended to come from the nativist side of the language acquisition debate with little input from a constructivist perspective. The present work was designed to redress the balance, first by presenting a detailed description of young children's wh-question acquisition data, second, by providing detailed critiques of two nativist theories of wh- question acquisition, and third, by presenting a preliminary account of young children's wh-question development from a constructivist perspective. Analyses of the data from twelve 2 to 3 year old children collected over a year and of data from an older child (Adam from the Brown corpus, 1973) are described and three conclusions are drawn. First it is argued that the data suggest that children's knowledge of how to form wh-questions builds up gradually as they learn how to combine lexical items such as wh-words and auxiliaries in specific ways. Second, it is concluded that two nativist theories of grammatical development (Radford, 1990, 1992, 1995, 1996, Valian, Lasser & Mandelbaum, 1992) fail to account successfully for the wh-question data produced by the children. Third, it is asserted that the lexically-specific nature of children's early wh-questions is compatible with a lexical constructivist view of development, which proposes that the language learning mechanism learns by picking up high frequency lexical patterns from the input. The implications of these conclusions for theories of language development and future research are discussed.

Modern language learning in secondary schools has been described as being in a state of crisis, with ever-decreasing numbers of learners continuing to learn languages longer than is compulsory. This crisis is particularly acute in specific contexts, such as urban areas, resulting in generally differential levels of motivation and achievement according to social background. The thesis begins with a search for appropriate ways of exploring the problem of demotivation within the above context, building on a number of autobiographical experiences. Firstly, drawing on my early teaching experiences as well as a study of urban education theory, I examine critically the location of the problem, committing myself to understanding ways in which language learning context itself may serve to empower or disempower the learners in different ways, rather than resorting to deficit approaches. I then draw on positive experiences of flexible learning in the classroom, examining the relationships between motivation and learner autonomy. After an initial ethnographic exploration of language learning in one urban school, this leads to the central focus of the research. This focus is on children’s own constructions of language learning, conceptualised as their metacognitive knowledge and beliefs. Privileging their voices, the research makes use of focused group conversations which have been specifically designed to enable the learners to articulate that which is rarely heard. Through their voices, we are able to build up a picture of the ways in which these children experience language learning, and, in particular, their perceived opportunities to take control of their learning and the ways in which the curriculum relates to their own life experiences. This offers insights into the complex and dynamic relationships between motivation and different aspects of metacognitive knowledge and beliefs, and enables us to move towards a vision of an inclusive, powerful language learning curriculum for the twenty-first century.

This thesis reports on a research project conducted in Perpignan in 1988. The object of the project was to discover and describe the varieties of language present in the town, patterns of language use and language attitudes among inhabitants. Perpignan has been part of France and therefore officially French-speaking for over three hundred years, but it is historically a Catalan-speaking town, and Catalan is still spoken there, although it is now a minority language. Several other minority languages are also spoken, due to the presence of immigrant communities, most notably Spanish, Portuguese and Arab. The research took the form of a questionnaire survey, used with a representative sample of the population. The major part of the thesis consists of a presentation of the findings of the survey. It presents the responses of the sample as a whole, and then discusses in greater detail the responses of each ethno-linguistic group. The survey revealed that Catalan, the historically indigenous language of the region, is quite widely known, but little used. 54.5% of the sampled population claim some knowledge of this language, but only 19.2% actually use it regularly. The majority of the sample seems to be well-disposed towards the language on a cultural level, yet see little or no use for it in practical terms. Use of and attitudes towards other minority languages are also discussed, with particular reference to Spanish, Portuguese and Arab immigrants. The study reveals a great linguistic diversity in Perpignan, and a number of conflicting movements and attitudes relating to those languages. There is a widespread feeling that it is inevitable and even necessary that all inhabitants of the town should become monolingual French speakers, yet at the same time there is an awareness of the value of maintaining minority languages, expressed mainly in attitudes towards Catalan.

This project sets out to discover and develop techniques for the lemmatisation of a historical corpus of the Cornish language in order that a lemmatised dictionary macrostructure can be generated from the corpus. The system should be capable of uniquely identifying every lexical item that is attested in the corpus. A survey of published and unpublished Cornish dictionaries, glossaries and lexicographical notes was carried out. A corpus was compiled incorporating specially prepared new critical editions. An investigation into the history of Cornish lemmatisation was undertaken. A systemic description of Cornish inflection was written. Three methods of corpus lemmatisation were trialed. Findings were as follows. Lexicographical history shapes current Cornish lexicographical practice. Lexicon based tokenisation has advantages over character based tokenisation. System networks provide the means to generate base forms from attested word types. Grammatical difference is the most reliable way of disambiguating homographs. A lemma that contains three fields, the canonical form, the part-of-speech and a semantic field label, provides of a unique code for every lexeme attested in the corpus. Programs which involve human interaction during the lemmatisation process allow bootstrapping of the lemmatisation database. Computerised morphological processing may be used at least to partially create the lemmatisation database. Disambiguation of at least some of the most common homographs may be automated by the use of computer programs.