Error Analysis has been widely used in studies of second language learning. At the same time, foreign language learning (as opposed to teaching), has largely been ignored as an object of research. The research had three major aims: to examine the potential of Error Analysis in foreign language learning by the development and trialling of a complex new coding schedule for analysing learner errors in French; to provide some descriptive data on the written errors and performance of foreign language pupils over a complete scholastic year; and to explore the nature of foreign language learning strategies used by the pupils studied. The thesis opens with a statement of purpose and method. This is followed by a short discussion of theories, topics and techniques in second and foreign language learning. The development of two forms of the coding schedule used to analyse errors is described and discussed. Recode checks and the development of 'Coding Confidence Levels' are presented. Procedures used in a longitudinal study of errors are then described. This study acted as an important trial for the coding schedules, known as Foreign Language Error Analysis: French (FLEAF). All written French produced by eight pupils in the same school class was collected over the 1978 New Zealand school year (February to December). The group were in their second year of high school French and had an average age of 14 years 5 months midway through the study. Background information is given about the subjects, including results of selected IEA French (Population II) tests administered during the year. Some description of the year's work is given, followed by general and case study analyses of errors. Selected results from both the longer (FLEAF-L) and shorter (FLEAF-S) coding schedules are then tabulated and discussed. Particular attention is paid to variables coding possible explanations for errors. Detailed analyses of errors in word order, negation and gender are offered, along with a review of correct performances for selected aspects. These analyses lead to two preliminary hypotheses which could in part explain the occurrence of errors. One hypothesis relates to the frequency with which pupils had been required to focus through drills on the point at issue, the other to the number of choices available to the pupil at the time of error. Discussion of Error Analysis and pupil strategies is then presented. It is concluded that Error Analysis has a valid role in developing hypotheses for a theory of foreign language learning. Five such hypotheses, suggested by the longitudinal study, are presented. It is argued that these five could all be classified on one of a proposed five levels of 'Operating Procedures' (McLaughlin, 1978a). Selection of a unique cluster of operating procedures would constitute the learning/performance 'strategy' of a particular pupil. These notions are incorporated into a tentative framework for a theory of foreign language learning. A modified 'Principle of Least Effort' (Zipf, 1965), is suggested as a key factor in the early stages of learning a foreign language, and ideas for subsequent research are proposed. / Whole document restricted, but available by request, use the feedback form to request access.

Doctor of Philosophy / This thesis proposes a model for the description of social practice which analyses social practices into the following elements: (1) the participants of the practice; (2) the activities which constitute the practice; (3) the performance indicators which stipulate how the activities are to be performed; (4) the dress and body grooming for the participants; (5) the times when, and (6)the locations where the activities take place; (7) the objects, tools and materials, required for performing the activities; and (8) the eligibility conditions for the participants and their dress, the objects, and the locations, that is, the characteristics these elements must have to be eligible to participate in, or be used in, the social practice.

The Vulnerable Machine is a book-length collection of poems that explores my ideas of the ill identity and the ill body. The title, The Vulnerable Machine, reflects both the personal—vulnerable—aspect of illness, and the cultural aspect, where illness is a construction and the body a machine that can be broken, fixed, and changed. The collection attempts to reveal my personal experience of illness, current social constructions of illness, and cultural representations of illness to arrive at a point where a personal voice of illness emerges. Many of the first person—and therefore more personal—poems explore my reactions to illness, as both a patient and a writer. With poems such as “I remember my body,” “the results come back,” and “writing on codeine,” I comment on the effects of illness on my sense of self; the effects of illness, hospitalisation, and medication on personal identity and body; and the shifting relationship between the self and the body as it changes from healthy to ill. In other poems such as “the doctor’s inheritance” and “a brief history of pain,” I investigate the social aspects of illness by examining the history of illness and medicine and the constantly changing body of medical knowledge and ‘truth.’ Such poems were inspired by the research I had done for the critical essay and illustrate a more critical engagement with illness. Different poems such as “Charles Bukowski,” “Virginia Woolf,” and “Charlotte Brontë” come from my position as both a patient but also a writer learning from other writers, and express the cultural representations of illness by considering the works of other writers, the cultural trends in illness writing and the demands placed on the ill by cultural expectations. The illness discussed in the work remains unnamed and undefined in the hope that from a beginning that avoids labels and categories a personal voice of illness is free to emerge. With this in mind, the speaker also remains anonymous. My desire with both the creative and critical works is to focus on the experience of illness as a phenomenon, and not a particular illness. In the critical essay I consider how to write an inclusive discourse for illness. The essay begins with an analysis of the processes of narration and its cultural imperatives to deduce ideas about the control of biomedical rhetoric in personal illness voices. With this idea in mind, The Diving-Bell and the Butterfly, by Jean- Dominique Bauby, is discussed as an example of the heroic quest; the essay argues that it is a contemporary manifestation of Talcott Parsons’ concept of the sick role, which leads into an interrogation of new ways of writing illness. I briefly analyse Eric Michaels’ AIDS diary, Unbecoming, as representative of a resistant narrative. The work of Julia Kristeva and Luce Irigaray offers suggestions for the restoration of ��criture féminine—feminine language—that sheds light on the development of a new discourse for illness. Exploring feminist ideas about destabilising patriarchal language leads to an exploration of the potential of lyric poetry to facilitate such renegotiations of language. This draws on the lyric technique of using personal experience to inform universal ideas, and the use of image and refrain to structure meaning. The discussion of the lyric is followed by an examination of “The Glass Essay,” by Anne Carson, in order to develop a method that may offer an alternative to current representations of illness. This is done by suggesting Carson’s work offers a technique to represent an independent, personal voice in illness. The essay suggests that the lyric poem is an ideal form for expressing a personal, subjective voice that nevertheless discusses larger issues and therefore removes the patient from their isolated social position.

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Thesis (M.A.)--Catholic Theological Union at Chicago, 1989. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 133-135).

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Auburn University, 2007. / Abstract. Includes bibliographic references (ℓ.251-267)

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Western Sydney, 2003. / A thesis submitted in fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy at the University of Western Sydney, School of Humanities, 2003. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (M. Ed.)--University of Adelaide, 1988. / Typescript. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 242-251).

Thesis (MA--Applied Language Studies) -- Auckland University of Technology, 2005. / Also held in print (x, 119 leaves ; 30 cm.) in City Campus Theses Collection. (T 372.4 JEU)

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Sydney, 1993. / Title from title screen (viewed 27 March 2008). Submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy to the Dept. of Linguistics, Faculty of Arts. Includes bibliographical references. Also available in print form.