This study aims to explore the non-linear interactions between the self-perceived affective experiences of a group of learners and their self-evaluated performances in a foreign language (FL) classroom through the lens of Dynamic Systems Theory (DST), a theory which developed from advances in the understanding of complex and nonlinear systems in physics and mathematics. The present study bridges several disciplines, namely, mathematics, physics, psychology, applied linguistics and education, in order to avoid over-simplifying the phenomenon by focusing on fragments of reality. This study endeavours to transcend the boundaries between the above disciplines. Abstract DST concepts from mathematics and physics were initially translated into tangible FL terms acceptable to social science researchers. In addition, in order to engage with the learners, a phenomenographic approach was adopted as a qualitative method to explore the dynamism of the learners’ affective experiences and their reflections on their experiences from a second order perspective. 12 second-year Chinese students of English from a Foreign Language University in China participated in this six-month longitudinal study. Diary, Qualitative Survey, Semi-structured Interview and Class Observation were utilised for data collection. Thematic Analysis (TA) was employed to describe the phenomena at a collective level. Finally, a three-layer model, the Dynamic Model of Foreign Language Development was proposed to draw a conclusion from this study, aiming to present a novel way of understanding the distinctive features of the learners’ constant self-evaluations and their perceptions in the different contexts across time. In summary, at a collective level, the relevant attractor states from the second layer, which were determined by three main forces, namely, cognition, emotion and motivation from the first layer, contribute to making up the relevant learning experiences in the third layer. This study has contributed to the under-studied area of emotions and performance in FL learning. Several research and pedagogical implications have been identified. The results of this study contribute to a possible way to figure out terminological issues in an interdisciplinary study. The findings suggest that DST could allow a researcher to situate emotions and performances in one iterative system. DST might provide a possible logical solution to such a causality dilemma.

There has been some sociological interest in MG Rover’s decline and widespread deindustrialisation in Birmingham. However, little research has considered the proximity of Rover’s closure in 2005 to another seminal event for the city – the opening of the Bullring shopping centre in 2003. These events appear indicative of Daniel Bell’s conception of ‘postindustrialism’. This thesis uses the tradition of ‘psychogeography’ to critique postindustrialism in Birmingham, examining the city’s collective psyche from a dynamic literary perspective. In Chapter 1, Daniel Bell’s predictions (made in 1973) of the likely characteristics of a post-industrial society are outlined and measured against recent economic and social events in Birmingham. In Chapter 2, the tradition of psychogeography is critically analysed, from Situationism and Kevin Lynch’s The Image of the City in the 1960s to the contemporary works of Iain Sinclair and Rebecca Solnit. I explore the argument that the key tenet of psychogeography missing from the work of contemporary practitioners is a utopian element with which writers theorize alternative forms of the city. This chapter provides a theoretical basis for both the use of literary montage and Stirchley’s inclusion in the psychogeography. Consequently, Chapters 3, 4 and 5 constitute the psychogeography itself, moving through three key geographical areas. These chapters offer a creative-critical representation of Birmingham in montage form, weaving fragments of narration with literary, theoretical and sociological works and considering the impacts of technology, industry and post-industrial urbanism on the city’s landscape and psyche. The discussion of Raymond Williams’s ‘mobile privatisation’ in Longbridge provides a catalyst for the consideration, in the final chapter, of a porous but socially divisive architecture in the Bullring. As the psychogeography progresses, the suburb of Stirchley and the Bullring market-area both emerge as contested spaces and, simultaneously, blueprints for an alternative form of the city. This thesis celebrates the variety, incoherence and inclusiveness of both spaces.

Idioms, as highly familiar word combinations, are processed quickly by native speakers, but are problematic for non-native speakers even at high levels of proficiency. In this thesis I explore the representation of idioms in the monolingual and bilingual lexicons. In a series of studies I investigate how native and non-native speakers of English process English idioms and idioms translated from another language. In Study 1 I used a lexical decision task to test how much an expected word is primed following the first part of an idiom, e.g. on the edge of your… seat. English native speakers and Chinese-English bilinguals were tested using English idioms and translations of Chinese idioms (e.g. draw a snake and add… feet). In Study 2 I presented the same materials in short passages to allow for more natural presentation and used eye-tracking to investigate the reading patterns for all items. I also compared figurative and literal uses of the same items to see how easily non-native speakers were able to process non-compositional meaning in the L2. In Study 3 I used the same methodology (eye-tracking of idioms used in short sentence contexts) with a higher proficiency group (Swedish-English bilinguals), with much shorter, less predictable idioms (e.g. break the ice/bryta isen) and included a set of idioms that exist in both L1 and L2. All three studies point to the same conclusion: that even in an unfamiliar translated form, the expected lexical combination was facilitated (idioms showed faster processing than control phrases), but only the highest proficiency participants also showed evidence that they were able to process the figurative meanings without disruption. Congruent items show no additional advantage, hence it is clearly L1 knowledge of what words ‘go together’ that drives the effect in translation. In Study 4 I extended this by contrasting idioms with other types of formulaic phrase: literal binomials (king and queen) and collocations (abject poverty). All types showed faster reading compared to equally plausible control phrases. I then used formulaic component words in separated contexts to see whether any lexical priming effects are observed when the formulaic frame is compromised. Only idioms showed evidence of a formulaic advantage in this condition, while binomials showed evidence of semantic priming and collocations showed evidence of disruption. Importantly, different factors relevant to each formulaic type show an effect on how they are processed, e.g. idioms were driven by predictability, while binomials were driven more by the strength of semantic association between component words. The results overall provide a valuable new perspective on how formulaic units are represented in the mental lexicon. The fact that faster processing is seen for translated forms shows that idioms are not processed as unanalysed whole units, since L1 influence must be contingent on the individual words activating translation equivalent forms. This also shows that non-native speakers do not show fundamentally different processing in their L2 than native speakers, and ‘known’ word combinations are processed quickly regardless of the language of presentation. Compared to idioms, other formulaic types also show fast processing in canonical forms, but are more variable in whether or not the component words also show lexical priming in non-formulaic contexts. Formulaicity therefore exists at multiple levels of representation, encompassing lexical, structural and conceptual properties of word combinations.

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No description available.

This thesis investigates the Scandinavian contribution to medieval microtoponymic vocabulary in two areas of northwest England, Wirral, part of the historic county of Cheshire in the north-west Midlands, and an area of the county of Cumbria, the West Ward of Westmorland Barony. It is shown that there was far greater Scandinavian linguistic influence on the medieval microtoponymy of the West Ward than on the medieval microtoponymy of Wirral. This thesis also assesses what conclusions can be drawn from the use of Scandinavian derived place name elements in microtoponyms. Scandinavian influence on microtoponymy has previously been interpreted, at one extreme, as evidence for Scandinavian settlement, and, at the other extreme, only as reflecting widespread Scandinavian influence on the English language and English naming practices. The relationship between Scandinavian settlement and Scandinavian influence on naming micropotonymy is explored by considering the microtoponymic evidence in the light of evidence illuminating the circumstances of Scandinavian settlement in the case-study areas, and by considering the evidence from the case-study areas within the wider context of Scandinavian influence on English naming practices. The substantial Scandinavian substantial influence on major place names in both areas confirms that Scandinavian had been spoken in Wirral and the West Ward. However, the Scandinavian contribution to toponymic vocabulary as recorded in the late medieval period was very different in the two areas, hinting at the indirectness of the link between Scandinavian settlement and influence on later microtoponymy. Indeed, detailed consideration of the use of individual Scandinavian-derived place name elements at a national level indicates that the areas over which some Scandinavian-derived place-name elements were used increased during the Middle English period. The factors underlying the usage of Scandinavian derived toponymic vocabulary in the late-medieval period are therefore more varied than has sometimes been acknowledged.

This thesis seeks to explore textually instantiated oppositions and their contribution to the construction of ‘us’ and ‘them’ in specific news texts. The data consists of reports of two major protest marches taken from news articles in UK national daily newspapers. The aim of the thesis is to review and contribute to the development of existing theories of oppositions (often known as ‘antonyms’), in order to investigate the potential effects of their systematic usage in news texts and add an additional method of analysis to the linguistic toolkit utilised by critical discourse analysts. The thesis reviews a number of traditional theories of opposition and questions the assumption that oppositions are mainly lexical phenomena i.e. that only those codified in lexical authorities such as thesauruses can be classed as true opposites. The hypothesis draws on Murphy (2003) to argue that opposition is primarily conceptual, evidence being that new ones can be derived from principles on which opposition is based. The dialectic between ‘canonical’ and ‘noncanonical’ oppositions allows addressees to process and understand a potentially infinite number of new oppositions via cognitive reference to existing ones. Fundamental to the discovery of co-occurring textually-constructed oppositions are the syntactic frames commonly used to house canonical oppositions, which, this thesis argues, can trigger new instances of oppositions when used in these frames. I conduct a detailed qualitative analysis of textually constructed oppositions in three news articles, and show how they are used by journalists to positively and negatively represent groups and individuals as mutually exclusive binaries, in order to perpetuate a particular ideological point of view. The final section is an examination of how critical discourse analysis studies into the construction of ‘us’ and ‘them’ in news texts can be enhanced by a consideration of constructed oppositions like those explored in the thesis.

The purpose of this study was to test the application of two linguistic models of narration and one linguistic model of speech and thought presentation on comic texts: Fowler's (1986) internal and external narration types, Simpson's (1993) narrative categories from his 'modal grammar of point of view' and Leech and Short's (1981) speech and thought presentation scales. These three linguistic models of narration and speech and thought presentation, originally designed and used for the analysis of prose texts, were applied to comics, a multimodal medium that tells stories through a combination of both words and images. Through examples from comics, I demonstrate in this thesis that Fowler's (1986) basic distinction between internal and external narration types and Simpson's (1993) narrative categories (categories A, B(N) and B(R) narration) can be identified in both visual and textual forms in the pictures and the words of comics. I also demonstrate the potential application of Leech and Short's (1981) speech and thought presentation scales on comics by identifying instances of the scales' categories (NPV/NPT, NPSA/NPTA, DS/DT and FDS/FDT) from comics, but not all of the speech and thought presentation categories existed in my comic data (there was no evidence of IS/IT and the ategorisation of FIS/FIT was debatable). In addition, I identified other types of discourse that occurred in comics which were not accounted for by Leech and Short's (1981) speech and thought presentation categories: internally and externally-located DS and DT (DS and DT that are presented within (internally) or outside of (externally) the scenes that they originate from), narratorinfluenced forms of DS and DT (where narrator interference seems to occur in DS and DT), visual presentations of speech and thought (where speech and thought are represented by pictorial or symbolic content in balloons) and non-verbal balloons (where no speech or thought is being presented, but states of mind and emphasized pauses or silence are represented by punctuation marks and other symbols in speech balloons).

This thesis reports an enquiry into Chinese primary and junior high school English teachers’ perceptions of, and responses to The Revised Curriculum (2011) for Full-time Compulsory Education. This document claims to hold a very different view of English teaching from pervious curricula, but this claim is largely unexplored. The research first aims to understand the challenges The Revised Curriculum (2011) poses for primary and junior high school teachers of English in the PRC. On the basis of this, the research also aims to understand teachers’ beliefs about The Revised Curriculum (2011) and what challenges they identify. Research into effective teaching gives a prominent role to teacher beliefs and knowledge not only about teaching, but also about changing any existing practices. Fullan (1993) argues that any educational reform ultimately relies on teachers, so their views and perceptions are pivotal to the success of The Revised Curriculum (2011). The study was conducted in two phases. Phase one involved a document content analysis of the 2001 and 2011 curricula to identify the changes aimed for in the 2011 curriculum and evaluates how these changes might affect teachers. In this phase of the research, a novel approach was taken to examine teachers' views of the Revised Curriculum (2011) through their activities on web forums in China. Their comments were sampled and analysed using NVivo to generate a map of their views and the relationships between them. The Phase one research showed that The Revised Curriculum (2011) is different from the 2001 version in some important ways. It foregrounds the humanistic value of student-centred teaching and learning, while giving teachers free choice of teaching method and a new role by contributing to curriculum development for the classes they teach from reflecting on the effectiveness of their methods and practices. Phase two of the research, based on the findings of Phase one, used written teacher questionnaire responses and semi-structured individual interviews in order to collect the views of a wider sample of teachers. This thesis reports the results and analysis of the teachers’ views and perceptions. The findings amplified the findings from the Phase one research and suggest that teachers have a range of concerns. The teachers in this study were uncertain about their new role; they were not clear about what a shift to student-centred teaching and learning implied. The teachers were also uncertain about the nature of reflection on their own practice and the possible accountability this reflection might entail. This study suggests these teachers were finding it challenging to understand the notion of the teacher as a professional who does not simply know and deliver the curriculum according to the new definition, but is seen as responsible for designing and creating the curriculum for their own particular students. This study also identifies an important tension between the published curriculum and the assessment system for English in China which, if left unresolved, is likely to leave teachers unable to meet the demands of both.

This mixed-methods study concerns the teaching of CLIL to students in mainstream secondary schools in Catalonia. English proficiency levels among school students remain persistently low throughout Spain compared to other European countries, despite policies to lower the age at which pupils start to learn English and increase the time they spend in lessons. Given the limited space in the curriculum in Catalonia, which already has the challenge of teaching two official languages, CLIL has increasingly been viewed as a solution to bolster English competence. This study therefore sets out to explore interaction and discourse in CLIL and L1 secondary science classrooms to find out how teachers were able to achieve their CLIL learning aims, while comparing teaching strategies and pupil participation in CLIL and L1 learning environments. Qualitative methods (questionnaires and interviews) were used to measure student and teacher perceptions of CLIL, while a combination of qualitative and quantitative measures were employed to analyse transcripts from 20 hours of recorded lessons. The results show that teachers used a greater range of tasks in the CLIL lessons to scaffold learning, engage students and encourage participation. Learning was more visual and hands on in the CLIL classrooms, whereas in the L1 lessons it could feature long stretches of teacher talk with few student-centred activities. However, student participation was low in the CLIL lessons. Students struggled to ask and answer questions in English, and teachers were unable, and often reluctant, to employ strategies to get students speaking, for example, through the use of ELT-style speaking activities. The research also revealed high rates of L1 use, both to communicate within the CLIL lessons and to teach entire lessons on the course. This reflects the teachers’ view that the science took precedence over language learning and that their aim was to teach the same amount and depth of science content in the CLIL lessons as they would expect to teach when using students’ L1.