Cross-linguistically, languages are largely head initial or head final. Most permit some disharmony, but Holmberg (2000) and Biberauer, Holmberg & Roberts (2012), among others, have argued that the structure shown in (1) is ruled out, where YP is X’s complement and ZP is Y’s complement: (1) *[XP [YP Y ZP] X] In structures such as (1), a head-final phrase immediately dominates a head-initial phrase, violating the so-called ‘Final-Over-Final Constraint’ (FOFC). Descriptively however, final question particles are readily found in languages with VO order, resulting in a structure that appears to violate FOFC. (2) illustrates this violation in Tetun (an Austronesian language of East/West Timor), and (3) shows the structure, with a final question particle ka immediately dominating a head-initial TP: (2) ó la bá sekola ká? 2S not go school or (Said to child playing:) ‘Didn't you go to school?’ (Van Klinken 1999: 212) (3) iii If ka constitutes the C head of CP, as is standardly assumed, the structure in (3) violates FOFC. I show, following Aldridge (2011), that these particles are best analysed as disjunctive elements, heading an elided clause: (4) [ConjP CP [Conj CP]] The particle is the head of the phrase, with the second CP as its complement and the first (pronounced) CP in Spec,ConjP. This solves the FOFC problem because the ‘particle’ is not final, and therefore the derivation does not include a head-final phrase dominating a head-initial phrase. Instead, the particle precedes its complement (which is not pronounced), and the clause that it follows (which is pronounced) is its specifier. I provide evidence for this position through typological investigation and theoretical analysis. In addition, the various proposals that have been put forward in the literature to avoid this FOFC-violation are considered, but are shown to be problematic in different respects. I discuss the idea that particles are not heads (Biberauer, Holmberg & Roberts 2012). However, they cannot be specifiers and an adjunction analysis fails to explain their properties, so it is unclear what they could be if not heads. Julien (2001), Lee (2005, 2008) and Simpson & Wu (2002) argue that final particles are derived by TP-movement to a Topic or Focus position. This is a promising explanation, but fails to derive the difference between final particles and other types. If the particle is syncategorematic (Biberauer, Holmberg & Roberts 2012), the fact that they appear in fixed positions is mysterious. Processing explanations of the data (Hawkins 2004, Philip 2012) go some way towards deriving the FOFC facts but do not, among other things, explain the high number of final particles in VO languages. The syntax of question particles is discussed in detail, and it is proposed that polar questions consist of two functional heads in combination: Force, giving a (main clause) question illocutionary force, and Polarity, giving a (neutral) iv question open polarity. A true polar question particle is therefore related to one or both of these heads: (5) With this background, the argument is defended in subsequent chapters that some particles cannot be true question elements in this sense and are instead instantiations of the disjunction. Cross-linguistic data demonstrate that final particles in VO languages differ from other types of question particle (initial particles, or final particles in OV languages) in very rarely marking embedded questions: they do so in only one language in the corpus. Homophony between the question particle and disjunction in many languages, combined with attested grammaticalisation paths, adds support to this claim. Furthermore, this analysis explains a number of properties of such particles in addition to their propensity to violate FOFC, including their frequent absence from negative questions, alternative questions and wh-questions. All of these are straightforward consequences of the particle being a disjunction. Finally, the analysis is applied to a particular language, Thai, as a case study, and it is compared with languages of the other types. It is shown that the disjunctive analysis is best able to explain the data and offer an elegant explanation of the FOFC facts.

This thesis brings together one aspect of language development, the production of anaphoric pronouns in the written narratives of seven-year-old children, with the design of technology appropriate for teaching using whole texts, and pedagogical goals involved in teaching mother-tongue language. A five-stage methodology is proposed for analyzing the requirements for designing a Mother Tongue Language Teaching System (MTLTS) and is used to generate an informal specification of requirements for a prototype system called PROTEUS. PROTEUS is a system for teaching seven-year-old children about the production of pronouns in written narratives. The analysis of requirements includes five stages beginning with the proposal of an adult model of pronoun production having a 'process' orientation. Experimental work is described in which written narratives were elicited and analyzed for the purpose of modelling pronoun production relative to the adult model. A psycholinguistic model of the production of anaphoric reference in the written narratives of seven-year-old children identifies heuristic production strategies which represent a gradual simplification of behavior. These strategies are found to be implemented within local units of text, and range from pronominalization of the only character a local unit of text is about, (by default, pronominalization in clause-initial position), to the emergence of a full-blown position conservation strategy. Children are also found to produce 'pronominal confusion' when they referred to interacting characters in less constrained environments; or, they avoided the use of pronominals altogether. A statement of pedagogical goals for PROTEUS is set out, followed by a review of manual and computational methods for teaching language. Finally, it is concluded that an electronic text should be used to teach about pronominalization, and a system model for PROTEUS, which could be mapped to a system implementation, is proposed.

This thesis provides a theoretical and methodological contribution to the rich and intense debate on intersubjectivity (Nuyts 2001, 2012; Verhagen 2005; Narrog 2010, 2012; Sweetser 2012, and others) and intersubjectification (Traugott 1999, 2002, 2003, 2010, 2012). I will argue that intersubjectivity, intended as the subject’s awareness of the other persona(s)’ feelings, knowledge and beliefs, can be construed on an ‘immediate’ or alternatively on an ‘extended’ level. Immediate intersubjectivity (I-I) corresponds to the mutual awareness of the speech participants during the on- going speech event, whereas extended intersubjectivity (E-I) includes an assumed 3rd party (specific or generic) who has an indirect social bearing on the utterance (cf. Tantucci 2013). I will argue that along a unidirectional cline of change, extended intersubjectification constitutes a further stage of semantic and grammatical reanalysis with respect to its immediate counterpart (cf. chapter 4-5). In order to empirically justify the diachronic continuum between the two, I provide synchronic and diachronic data from a number of qualitative and quantitative corpus surveys on the immediate and extended intersubjectification of some constructions and in particular the presuppositional chunk [you don’t want X] in British and American English (cf. chapter 4). According to this framework, it is now possible to explain some theoretical gaps in and contradictions among several of the most influential accounts on intersubjectivity and intersubjectification (cf. Traugott 1999, 2002, 2003, 2010, 2012; Nuyts 2001a, 2005, 2012; White 2003; Martin & White 2005; Verhagen 2005; Narrog 2010, 2012). The rest of the thesis (chapters 5-7) is dedicated to the synchronic and diachronic interplay of intersubjectivity and some specific semantic-pragmatic- grammatical domains both on an immediate and on an extended level. The three areas my investigation focuses on are evidentiality, factuality and presupposition. On this basis, I will first discuss the intersubjective/interpersonal encoding of evidentiality (chapter 5). Immediate, and in particular extended intersubjectivity, will be shown to be a fundamental trigger of interpersonal evidentiality (IE) here presented as the evidential dimension marking a statement as a form of knowledge shared with one or more member(s) of society (cf. Tantucci 2013). As a case study, I will provide the results of a qualitative and quantitative corpus survey on the grammaticalized status of the V-ﰀ guo construction, traditionally analysed as an experiential perfect (e.g. Li & Thompson 1981) in written Mandarin both from a synchronic and diachronic perspective. In the same chapter I then argue that IE can be seen as a proper typological category in the sense of having grammaticalized in many languages of the world. The theoretical implications of that will constitute a solid basis to reconsider evidentiality as a non-modal category primarily marking different types of ‘acquired knowledge’ (AK; cf. also Tantucci 2013) rather than a ‘particular source of information’ (as is most commonly done, e.g. Willett 1988; Aikhenvald 2004). The last part of this thesis will be centred on a gradient redefinition of the notion of factuality. In this thesis factuality is not intended as a bipolar category (as in Narrog 2005, 2009) but rather as a dynamic continuum unfolding, both in texts and in time, through several epistemic levels. Increasing certainty regarding the realisation of an event or situation is defined here as factualization. Chapter 6 focuses on factualization as a conceptual phenomenon determined by an embodied mechanism (Lakoff & Johnson 1980, 1999; Lakoff 1987, 2003; Grush 2004) of cyclic acquisition and control with respect to a new proposition P. Being a form of subjectification (Traugott 1989, 1995, 2002, 2003, 2010, 2011; Langacker 1985, 1987, 1990a, 1990b, 2006, 2008), factualization occurs both textually and diachronically, the former developing throughout an on-going discourse, the latter as the semasiological reanalysis of an epistemic construction. Drawing on Langacker’s (1991, 2008, 2009) notion of the epistemic control cycle, I address diachronic factualization first. I will demonstrate through a corpus study of data from English and Italian (taken from the BNC and diaCORIS) that epistemic predicates originally conveying weak certainty towards a proposition P diachronically develop an increasingly factual meaning conveying more and more frequently absolute certainty. In Chapter 7 I turn to textual factualization. I provide a synchronic corpus- driven account of the intersubjective construing of factualization. I show how throughout an on-going discourse certain propositions are subject to a process of re- construal from an evidential to presuppositional or assertive stances. I will do this on the basis of a corpus-based (BNC) case study of propositions of interpersonal evidentiality (IE) introduced by the adverbial apparently. As I will argue, this surprisingly frequent phenomenon involves intersubjective construals of expected accommodation (cf. Schwenter and Waltereit 2010) as well as the extended- intersubjective awareness of an assumed third party (3rdP) who could potentially confirm the truthfulness of P.

A large body of research to date has focused on the link between phonological awareness (PA), emergent literacy, and reading success. The bulk of research on the relationship between PA and literacy has been conducted in monolingual children. It is unclear how this relationship presents in bilingual Arabic speaking children. The aim of the current study was to address the relationship between PA and literacy skills in monolingual Arabic-speaking and bilingual Arabic-English speaking Kuwaiti children who read in the Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) orthography. A cross-sectional and longitudinal design was used. Participants were four groups of children (monolingual kindergarten, bilingual kindergarten, monolingual first grade, and bilingual first grade). Data were collected for the kindergarten groups once during the school year, and twice for the first grade groups. Children were assessed via PA tasks at the level of syllables, rhymes, and phonemes; as well as via a single word reading task, and a letter knowledge task. Between group comparisons show bilingual children have significantly higher scores on most PA skills in Arabic. A cross-linguistic relationship was found for the bilingual children whereby PA abilities in Arabic were correlated with reading in English. Results also indicated a general improvement in PA skills for both monolinguals and bilinguals once literacy training had been introduced, as well as a clear bilingual advantage for reading post literacy training. It is argued that there is need for further research into this area, as well as a need for standardized tests in the Arabic language.

No description available.

The present longitudinal study was designed to provide a description of the changes that occur across time in three mother-child with SLI dyads in conversational interaction. Analysis of the mother-child with SLI conversations included: a) a structural analysis- mean length of utterance (MLU) , mean number of utterances per turn and number of non-verbal turns for the mother and child. b) a contingency analysis, a functional analysis of mother-child interactions, and a child's conversational participation analysis. Each dyad is discussed, initially, as a single case study. Comparisons between the dyads' conversational behaviours are made and set out in the second and third parts of the results' section. These comparisons are warranted by the fact that these children were selected because they were at the same stage of language development at the beginning of the study. The analysis of the results indicated individual differences in the children's conversational participation. Nonetheless, for all three children and for all observational sessions, participation in the conversation was considered mainly adequate in relation to the mother's previous utterance. The highest proportion of maternal contingent replies were, for the three dyads and across all observational sessions, topic continuations. That is, independent of age and language level the mothers provided continuation to the current topic of conversation of the dyad. The results are evaluated in terms of methodological aspects of longitudinal studies with mother-child with SLI interaction. Some clinical implications are also discussed.

This thesis examines the construction of ‘European identity’ in the discourses of members of European Alternatives (EA), an association of citizens which characterizes itself as committed to the grassroots construction of a better society ‘beyond the nation-state’. By taking bottom-up and transnational perspectives, this study intends to fill a gap in the field of Critical Discourse Studies that seems to have largely underestimated the value of social action and the need to move away from ‘methodological nationalism’ in conceiving of how Europeanness is transformed and enacted. The study applies the Discourse Historical Approach (Wodak 2001) to a corpus of data comprising of four focus groups and nine individual interviews with EA members from 10 different branches across Europe. The results suggest a complex and very dynamic picture of how European identities are constructed, challenged and transformed by members who, typically, adopted strategies of dismantling of nationhood, and strategies of ‘imagining’ new communities, spaces and social orders. Two key linguistic features conspicuously drive the members’ discourses of ‘belonging to Europe/being European’. One is the metaphorical scenario of spatial dynamics that, by and large, makes sense of the ‘European space’ as unbounded and interconnected with the world and whereby the European society is seen as progression and expansion of an ‘imagined’ community towards certain cosmopolitan ideals. The second element is the indexicality of transnationalism and Europe, two terms that members invested with a range of meanings including ideals of democracy, diversity, and equality but that were also constructed through the recontextualisation of historical discourses of nationhood. This thesis thus suggests that, for EA members, the transformation of Europeanness is not a linear process (as for example some theories of the ‘Europeanisation’ of society would have it) but, rather a dialectic one which relates to one’s situatedness within temporal, spatial, and social dimensions and which is achieved via multiple and dynamic identification processes with different communities of relevance.

Traditionally (e.g. Sperber & Wilson 1995, Levinson 2000, Jackendoff 2002, Chomsky 2005a), linguistic expressions have meaning in virtue of having linguistic semantic properties. It is often claimed that linguistic semantics is functionally distinct from but related to the semantics of thought. In particular, linguistic semantics is assumed to be deterministically (necessarily and always) decoded in utterance interpretation and fed, as a basic premise, to pragmatic processing. Linguistic semantics is supposed to aid (i.e. constrain) utterance interpretation insofar as it is at least ‘widely’ shared among speech community members (Carston 2002). However, it has been suggested that linguistic semantics is problematic (e.g. Burton-Roberts 2005, Gibbs 2002, Recanati 2005). This thesis argues that the notion of linguistic semantics, as well as the process of deterministic decoding of such content, is implausible and explores the consequences of this claim for a theory of meaning and utterance interpretation. In the first part, I raise questions about the nature of semantics (externalism or internalism) as well as its structure (atomism, molecularism or holism). In line with the Representational Hypothesis (e.g. Burton-Roberts 2012), I maintain that thought is the only locus of semantics and that meaning is not a property of linguistic expressions, but a cognitive relation between an uttered word and semantics (of thought). I argue that whereas semantic content is holistic, meaning (in the sense of Burton-Roberts) is locally – i.e. contextually – constrained to a degree which, all things being equal, allows for successful communication. I argue that utterance interpretation is a wholly pragmatic inferential process, immediately constrained by a personal (i.e. holistic) inference about the communicative intention of a particular speaker in a particular conversational context. I claim that such a process of utterance interpretation can be implemented in terms of Hintzman’s (1986) multiple-trace theory of memory. In the second part, I illustrate my argument by an analysis of the relation between the word if and Material Implication (MI). I show that the claim (e.g. Grice 1989, Noh 2000) that if semantically encodes MI cannot be maintained. I argue that the application of MI has to be pragmatically determined and, therefore, when MI applies, it does so at the level of (holistic) thought – not at the (anyway problematic) linguistic semantic level. I explain the interpretation of conditionals in terms of Horton & Gerrig’s (2005) extension of a multiple-trace theory of memory into the study of common ground. I also discuss the implications of a wholly pragmatic account of utterance interpretation for the distinction between explicit and implicit communication.

The work presented in the current thesis was aimed at identifying the exact locus of the age of acquisition (AoA) effect within the systems responsible for word and picture processing. Chapter One reviews some of the current influential models of word and picture production and discusses the effects that AoA (and frequency) have upon these processes. Current theories of AoA are also discussed. Chapters Two and Three assess the locus of the AoA effect in the word naming task. The results of these experiments lead to the conclusion that AoA (and frequency) exert their effects in the connections between orthography and phonology in single word naming. Chapter Four then tested the alternative claim that AoA affects the level of phonological output processing by investigating the AoA effect in a phonological segmentation task and by relating the size of the AoA effect in this task and in a word naming task to individual differences in phonological skill. The results of this comparison demonstrate that AoA is unrelated to explicit phonological processing. Chapter Six then investigated the effect of AoA (and other variables) in the picture naming task by relating aphasic patient's level of impairment to the variables that affect their picture naming performance. The results of this study suggest that AoA influences the strength of the connections between semantics and phonology in picture naming. The present thesis concludes that AoA influences the strength of the connections between input (orthography and semantics) and phonological output. The final Chapter discusses the implications of the present results for current theories of AoA and for models of word and picture production.

The socioeconomic context in the renaissance era in Oman has resulted in the development of new forms of discursive prastises and thus, in the introduction of new genres. One of these new genres is the business annual report, which in Oman exists in English and Arabic. This thesis examines the role of translation in the production of annual reports. This research makes a contribution to the field of Translation Studies by examining institutional translation in order to gain insights into translation agents, processes, practises and underlying policies with reference to national business institutions in their sociopolitical and historical and institutional contexts. Business reports are still largely under-researched as a genre in Translation Studies. The thesis starts with an overview of relevant aspects of Translation Studies to arrive at a theoretical framework which informs the analysis. The empirical analysis is based on sixty seven reports produced by different Oman-based companies which vary in size and organisational patterns. Annual reports are characterised as a genre in terms of function and structure at the macro-level as well as the micro-level. They have an informative and a persuasive function, as they are produced by different companies in their attempt to promote and fulfil their respective business interests and objectives. The thesis presents the sociocultural and political contexts of the production of the English and Arabic versions of the annual reports, focusing on the underlying functions and principles of institutions and agents. The next chapter illustrates the textual profiles of the English and the Arabic versions, identifying typical translation strategies. The discussion here operates within the framework of product-oriented Descriptive Translation Studies (Lambert and van Gorp 1985). It is argued that the two language versions reflect aspects of ideology, political affiliation and power relations at both the macro and micro- structural levels. These ideological aspects can be seen in particular in the addition, omission and change of specific expressions which refer to religious or interpersonal aspects. These strategies signal the aim to appeal to wider Arab readers and to fulfil the agendas of different agents (government, companies, chairpersons, directors, etc.). The description of the texts is followed by an account of these aspects in terms of sociopolitical and institutional conditions in the production of the translations. For this explanation, reference is made to sociological approaches to translation, mainly building on the work of Bourdieu (1991). This thesis emphasises that the translation of annual reports is a collective effort which takes place in a particular institutional context. Consequently, the translation strategies are regulated by the objectives of the institution within which translators and other agents operate. The translations are prepared in order to meet the expectations and needs of the intended Arabic language addressees; in addition, the generic features of the reports reveal a progression of transmission and development over the course of time in the spheres of business and economy in Oman. This thesis demonstrates that business companies too can be seen as institutions which contribute significantly to disseminating business terms and concepts and promoting investment opportunities domestically and internationally through translation work.