As interest has grown in recent years in the relationship between translation and language learning, a rising number of studies have begun to examine the pedagogical value of translation and explore the best ways to use translation in L2 classrooms. Some doubts have been raised about this practice, but few empirical studies have been undertaken. This study compares how L2 learners react to particular translation tasks and to monolingual tasks and specifically investigates the outcomes of using translation tasks to (1) engender language-related discussions in class and (2) foster improvement in students’ written language in grammar and lexis, as compared to corresponding monolingual tasks. The study also examines non-language major L2 learners’ perspectives on the use of the two different types of tasks in L2 classrooms. The study is longitudinal. It includes two Experiments. In Experiment I, half of the participants worked on translation tasks and the other half were exposed to monolingual writing tasks that resemble the translation tasks in terms of topic. In Experiment II, the two groups swapped roles and worked on the other type of tasks. In this way, both groups experienced the two different types of tasks. Data were collected over two semesters and from multiple sources, including class-discussion transcripts, completed translation and writing drafts and revisions and questionnaires. The findings reveal that those who worked on translation tasks (1) showed a higher level of engagement in L2 class discussions, (2) made more lexical and grammatical improvements in their writing, and (3) had more positive views on the use of translation in L2 classrooms.

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This study explores social presence (SP) and its nature and role in online language tutorials at the Open University. My research questions ask how SP is perceived to influence language learning and what factors impact on the projection of SP from the learner perspective. I also ask if these perceptions are evidenced through observed aspects of tutor and learner participation. Within the field of computer-mediated communication (CMC), SP theory has evolved from a view of SP as a product of a technological medium to an understanding of the impact of social interaction on its development and projection. Research studies in CMC highlight the importance of SP but, as yet, the links between SP and online language learning have not been fully explored. Whereas socio-cultural theory provides a framework for my understanding of the importance of social interaction in learning, I draw on the field of multimodality to gain insight into the meaning-making potential of multimodal environments. I also draw on the Community of Inquiry framework (Garrison et al., 2000) to provide both a theory and methodology for my study of SP. My principal finding is that positive SP is important in online language learning, not only to support and facilitate language interaction but also as a necessary aspect of communication in language learning. However, the generation and impact of SP are contingent upon factors related to individual learner differences and emotional responses, and to its interplay with teaching presence and ‘language learning presence’, which is a new concept. SP must always be understood in relation to the primary mediating variables of the subject area and online learning environment. The pedagogical relevance of my study is located in insights into the nature and role of SP in online language learning, derived from an integrated methodology, involving both student perspectives and my observations of online interaction.

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The present study examines (im)politeness in technologically mediated interactions between Company representatives and customers, in which customers request information or complain about a service received. The study first explored normative behaviour in requesting information via telephone and email and then looked at deviant cases where following interactional trouble of some sort, the exchanges became unexpectedly inappropriate and thus open to evaluations of impoliteness. The study further examined impoliteness in the way customers communicated their dissatisfaction. Here, the way complaints were articulated and responded was found to vary between telephone and Facebook. On the telephone, face-threatening behaviour was targeted at the institutional agent and the customers appealed to the agent’s sense of fairness. On a public social media Facebook page, administrated by an anonymous representative, the customers attacked the Company’s image. Precisely because of the public nature of the setting, the customers’ flaming behaviour, i.e. aggressive or hostile behaviour, differed from that identified in complaint calls. In other words, aggressive behaviour and humour were seen as devised for different audiences as separate communicative goals, whereby the aggressive behaviour was aimed at the Company whereas other followers are meant to enjoy its humorous potential with the objective of providing support through likes and affiliative comments. It was found that while customers’ complaints rarely triggered remedial actions on the telephone, on Facebook, responses to negative feedback are not normatively required. When responses were provided, various disaffiliating distance strategies were used. Overall, the analysis of complaints has shown that they are managed in a rather non-accountable manner. It further revealed the discrepancy between the infrastructural services and the pseudo-modern image, the Company aims to project. This study provides valuable insights into (im)politeness in customers’ requesting and complaining behaviour in authentic Slovenian institutional interactions, thus contributing to the burgeoning field of (im)politeness research in institutional settings.

The impetus for this research derives largely from the need to understand the course of human ontogenetic development in abnormal circumstances. The specific focus of the research is the emergence of language and cognition and social and communicative behaviour in children who have suffered extreme global deprivation at an early age. The crucial research issue, however, concerns the extent to which normal language acquisition is still possible given an initial environment that is largely language-less and lacking in social stimulation and interaction. In the early 1990s, thousands of cases of children brought up in the unprecedented neglect of Romanian childcare institutions were discovered. Many were internally adopted. This thesis describes an in-depth, exploratory investigation of a small number of these children, whose development after adoption was monitored for two years. A range of research methods was used including interviews, observation, standardized tests and detailed qualitative analyses. Some degree of developmental catch-up has been reported for previously institutionalised Romanian children who were adopted before the age of six months (Rutter et al., 1998). However, the children in this study were adopted around or after the age of 4 years, and it is suggested here that, even at this late age, developmental outcome is not fixed. The findings of this study are: 1.) extreme global deprivation appears to lead to global retardation, but, if the deprived environment is replaced by a stimulating one, then developmental gains can be achieved; 2.) the effects of extreme deprivation are neither permanent nor irreversible, and for example, the grammar of spontaneous speech and conversational ability develop apparently normally; 3.) the linguistic development of severely deprived children does not provide evidence of a critical period for first language acquisition; 4.) cases of severely deprived children do not provide evidence of a dissociation between language and non-verbal cognition.

This thesis is concerned with investigating promotional discourse types in the UK from more than one medium with the aim of showing and comparing the characteristics (situational, generic, linguistic, and visual) of such discourse types, where such features also reflect the complexity of this discourse. For this purpose, a range of analytical frameworks, two integrated, were used for studying five promotional discourse types, namely adverts, posts, comments, reviews, and interviewees’ responses, where each model tackled an aspect of promotional discourse. Guided by Herring’s (2007) and Biber and Conrad’s (2009) frameworks, the situational characteristics of the above first four discourse types were explained, which allow accounting for some of the linguistic patterns identified in the following analyses. Categorising these four discourse types as members of promotional genres was informed by Bhatia’s (1993; 2004; 2005) generic approach, where three moves were identified as common to all discourse types. Through this analysis, the different participants of this discourse were specified, and their different linguistic representations were scrutinised through adopting Van Leeuwen’s (1996; 2008) representation framework. The representational category of inclusion indicated adverts to be product-centred, whereas customers featured as the prominent participant in the posts, comments, and reviews. With respect to the visual analysis, the informants’ responses generally demonstrated the diversity of individuals’ understandings of visual resources, where this goes against Kress and Van Leeuwen’s (1996; 2006) interpretations. Examining these responses linguistically, first through applying Van Leeuwen’s (1996; 2008) network, they were found to complement the findings of the above linguistic analysis of products as the prominent represented objects. Secondly, investigating the interpretations using Martin and White’s (2005) appraisal theory, the evaluative nature of the informants’ responses was reflected through the attitudinal type of appreciation. The multi-analytical tools adopted succeeded in showing the diversity of the resources of promotional discourse.

This research reports on an intervention study which aims to examine and enhance the language learner autonomy (LLA) of a group of Saudi students at tertiary level following a blended course and to assess the improvement in their LLA after the intervention. Thus, this study proposes two research models: one for the enhancement and another for the assessment of LLA in the 21st century and establishes a scale for the measurement of LLA. The study was conducted in a semester-long (13 weeks) undergraduate Medicine ESP Course in Saudi Arabia. The blended course was taught to two groups of Medicine students in their preparatory year (online and offline). The mixed-method design of this research uses an experiment to investigate the effect of the online mode on the enhancement of LLA and a case study to further explore the construct of LLA and the way improvement in LLA was taking place besides validating the proposed measurement scale. Little’s (1999; 2001) model for the enhancement of LLA, with its three interrelated principles, was expanded using Schwienhorst’s (2008) suggestion. Learner training was provided to students to enhance their metacognitive knowledge and to improve their skills and competences in language learning. Medical English content relevant to their subject was selected for the supplementary material to increase the learners’ motivation to engage. As the research goal was to enhance LLA, there was no particular focus on language skills. Language learning strategies as the underpinning pedagogical framework were tailored in a task-based format to design the supplementary component of the blend. A variety of learning/ teaching approaches were also deployed in the tasks chosen for the course content. These support the learners’ cognitive engagement and interaction in a collaborative way to exploit the learners’ cognitive and social dimensions in line with recent views of learner autonomy in the language classroom (e.g. Vygotsky, 1978; Dam, 1995; Seeman and Tavares, 2000; Thomsen, 2000; Little, 2001; Lamb, 2010; Benson, 2011; and Tassinari, 2012, 2015). The supplementary component of the blend was used with on- and off-line treatment groups and these two different modes aim to test the impact of technology on the enhanced LLA. Tools built into a Virtual Learning Environment (VLE), Desire2Learn, were used in the design of the online element of the blended course. For the assessment of LLA, quantitative and qualitative methods were triangulated in a mixed method research approach to look at it through the learner voice and metacognition (process perspective) as well as through the learner gained tests scores (product perspective) as LLA is a combination of observable and non observable behaviours. A model was developed to assess LLA starting with the quantitative measurement and moving on to the qualitative part of the assessment to test the reliability of the measuring scale. To overcome the problem that LLA is an unsteady state, the assessment model integrates summative and formative assessment methods. Findings from the integrated data types shows that the training is more important for the development of LLA than the technology, but technology is effective in making a difference between individuals in the improvement in LLA capacities mainly confidence, reflection, planning, and learning management. It also finds that learners’ language proficiency is a key indicator for their LLA and that the assessment of LLA helps to better understand the process of LLA enhancement and the potential factors that might influence learners’ LLA. Finally, the qualitative part of the assessment helps to capture the effect of learners’ willingness (attitude and belief) on their readiness to accept the effort exerted to enhance their LLA which illustrates the need for examining learners’ readiness before starting any plan for LLA enhancement.

The question of how words from different languages are represented and accessed in bilingual speakers is the focus of much debate in the psycholinguistic literature. In this thesis, we aimed to contribute to a better understanding of the processes that underlie naming and translation abilities in bilingual speakers. Our goals were 1) to clarify the role of cognateness across tasks, languages and populations in relation to interactive activation models of bilingual lexical production and 2) to evaluate models that posit direct lexical links between words in two languages by examining the extent of semantic involvement across tasks. These questions were studied by collecting converging evidence from younger and older neurologically healthy participants and from brain-damaged participants with word finding deficits. The key results are as follows: 1) In healthy participants, robust cognate facilitation effects were present across tasks, languages and age groups. 2)Cognate effects were stronger in translation than in naming in healthy participants. 3)In aphasic participants, a consistent cognate advantage was observed when naming pictures in the weaker language, but less so when naming pictures in the strongest language or in translation. 4) Treating words in one language generalised to cognate words, with some generalisation to untreated tasks. 5) Aphasic participants produced fewer semantic errors in translation than in naming. Overall, this study clarifies the role of cognateness in bilingual language production. It is the first to examine cognateness effects in a within-subject design, using the same stimuli across tasks and participant groups in an attempt to resolve some of the inconsistencies in prior research, which may be related to variations in experimental protocols across studies. It is also the first to use converging evidence from aphasia in an integrated study. Our findings support interactive activation models of the bilingual lexicon and dual-route models of translation.

This thesis was begun with two intentions. The first was to test a hypothesis of the Annett Right Shift Theory (1972, 1985) that people with poor phonology are less biased to right-handedness than the general population. The second was to establish whether to reduced bias to dextrality applies to deficits in all types of phonological processing. Evidence for an association between poor phonological processing and reduced dextrality was demonstrated in an age cohort of schoolchildren and in two large undergraduate samples. Cases of 'pathological' handedness are unlikely to have caused the association as, in children, the differences increased when those with slow hand skill and poor vocabularies were removed. Support for a genetic influence upon phonological processing was found when groups of children and undergraduates with varying phonological ability also varied for their relatives' handedness. Although, as expected, undergraduates with problems with nonword rhyme were more often left-handed and had more left handed relatives, against predictions, those with phoneme discrimination difficulties were much more dextral in handedness and had fewer left handed relatives. These interesting results were further investigated and poor ability in either phonological production/segmentation or rhyme/awareness was found to be associated with a reduced shift to dextrality. Finally an atypical pattern in dichotic listening (equal errors at each ear) was associated with phonological awareness difficulties, as was the atypical pattern of absence of shift to dextrality in handedness. The findings suggest that poor phonological awareness or phonological production/segmentation could be a risk in the rs - genotype and minor phoneme perception problems could be a disadvantage for the rs++ genotype. It is also suggested that the latter could be part of a multi-sensory problem (Stein and Walsh, 1997). These questions are discussed further and the contributions, limitations and implications of the work are reviewed.