This study investigated the representation and processing of the bilingual Chinese-English mental lexicon. Specifically, the conceptual level of representation was examined. Four aims were pursued in this project. First and second, this investigation addressed the way in which concepts are represented and processed in bilingual lexical memory. It also compared language processing on a word level in visual and auditory modalities. Finally, the investigation probed the degree of semantic overlap in bilingual speakers. To achieve the aims of this project, Chinese-English speakers were requested to perform a primed animacy decision task. This task allowed for the addressing of the notions of priming effect, priming asymmetry effect, and the impact of modality on language processing. In addition, bilingual participants and control groups of monolingual English and Chinese participants were requested to take part in a semantic judgment task. This task was used to evaluate the notion of semantic overlap. The investigation of the four separate notions helped test the Revised Hierarchical Model (RHM) (Kroll and Stewart, 1994). It was demonstrated that participants responded more rapidly to the related targets (translation equivalents) than to the unrelated ones (words in L1 and L2 that did not share meaning) and this was taken as evidence for a shared conceptual store. Moreover, a priming effect was observed from L1 to L2 but it failed to appear in the L2 to L1 language direction. This pointed to a priming asymmetry and the fact that the strength of the interlexical connection between L1 and concepts is stronger than this relationship with L2. Further comparison of the results from the visual and auditory modalities illustrate that the processes are not identical and that the information in the two modalities might become available at slightly different rates. Finally, a comparison of bilingual and monolingual semantic structures revealed that bilingual English and Chinese conceptual maps are more similar to one another than to the monolingual English or Chinese maps, respectively, which in turn may point to the process of semantic convergence (Pavlenko, 2009). The findings obtained in this study substantiate the original framework of the RHM (Kroll and Stewart, 1994).

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The aim of this dissertation is to investigate the situation of minoritised languages in France and Spain, by developing a comparative framework for the analysis, and taking into account the theoretical and empirical sociolinguistic research context with regard to language planning and language ideologies. To date, theoretical and empirical studies have tended to focus on one region, have adopted a comparative approach that focuses on individual languages without an explorative comparison of the regimes behind those languages, or have preferred to adopt a generalised theoretical approach that does not discuss in great detail the specifics of any one region. In my comparison of languages spoken in France and Spain that are not the state language, I explore the impact of contrasting political regimes on language planning to discover if state regime is an important factor behind the long-term survival of minoritised languages. The subject matter for this investigation concentrates on two languages from each country: Breton and Occitan for France, and Catalan and Galician for Spain. The empirical data for my investigation consists of questionnaire responses by native, non-native and non-speakers of the languages in question that covers an age-range from eighteen to eighty-five, rural and urban dwellers and lifelong residents and incomers. In addition, I have obtained data from language planners and I have analysed language plans and surveys via means of the Internet. The Internet has formed a key part of the research for this PhD, so that the methodology has taken advantage of new technology that could provide a change of direction for future research programmes.

This thesis examines from a post-colonial perspective the position of the Danish language in Faroese society. It aims to demonstrate that post-colonial theory, which originally emerged as a methodology for literary analysis in the 1970s, offers a framework by which very different post-colonial linguistic scenarios, such as those in the Faroes and Greenland, can be analysed, compared and contrasted. In addition to established ideas within post-colonialism, from scholars such as Althusser and Spivak, three new concepts – saming, language othering and linguistic autonomy – are developed and used in the analysis of linguistic developments that have taken place on the islands since Danish was introduced. It is argued that the colonial history of the Faroes provides the most rewarding perspective for such an examination. Recurrent themes in language research on the islands, both historical and contemporary, such as Gøtudanskt, are contextualised within the post-colonial framework. Similarly, topics which have received little academic attention, such as the role of the heavily Danish-influenced Suðuroy dialect, are also analysed from this perspective. A considerable part of the investigation stems from field research (predominantly questionnaires). The thesis suggests that the Faroes constitute an atypical case within post-colonial studies due to the common cultural/linguistic heritage of the coloniser and the colonised. However, the non-standard characteristics of post-colonial Faroese society can only be fully appreciated in comparison with a ‘typical’ post-colonial society, and Greenland is proposed as this standard example. The final chapter therefore provides a comparative study between the language situations in the two societies. In addition to the introductory and concluding sections, the thesis contains five chapters, which deal with the following: theory and methodology; colonisation and the cementing of Danish into Faroese society; the field research; decolonisation and the reassessment of the position of Danish in Faroese society; and the afore-mentioned comparative study.