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In this thesis, I explore the constructions speakers of European Portuguese use to express the impersonal function in language. Impersonalisation is defined as a functional category which demotes or suppresses participants from the event scene through the construal speakers impose on the event being described. Impersonals also comprise types of events which naturally lack participants, such as natural events. In this thesis, I will focus specifically on impersonalisation as a device used by the speaker to demote or suppress the participants in the event frame and which rank higher in the semantic role hierarchy. Upon the investigation of a transcribed oral corpus of European Portuguese, and departing from the defmition of impersonalisation, the following constructions were identified which convey an impersonal meaning: se constructions (anticausative, passive, desubjective and potential se constructions), the periphrastic passive construction, nominalisations (action and de-adjectival nominals) and infinitival constructions, haver constructions, lexical constructions, and personal- and indefinitepronoun constructions. The construction grammar perspective enables the analysis of the above structures as pairings of form and meaning/function, disclosing the internal symbolic structure between a formal configuration and particular instances ofthe impersonal function. Given the principle of non-synonymy in language, the functional varation of the constructions is accounted for by the different construal operations which underlie each construction. Each construction evokes a different construal or image of the event being conceptualised - none of the constructions exhibit the exactly the same construal operations. The results of the study show that impersonalisation is pervasive in language, being expressed in diverse ways and it is transversal to other functions in language. The constructions connect to different regions along the syntax-lexicon continuum, ranging from constructs (specific lexical constructions) to macro-constructions (schematic syntactic constructions). The study also allows the refinement of the definition of impersonalisation as a superordinate functional category which is subcategorised into four different types, according to notions of reference, specificity and genericity as well as demotion and suppression.

Inquiry into the evolution of syntactic universals is hampered by severe limitations on the available evidence. Theories of selective function nevertheless lead to predictions of local optimaliiy that can be tested scientifically. This thesis refines a diagnostic, originally proposed by Parker and Maynard Smith (1990), for identifying selective functions on this basis and applies it to the evolution of two syntactic universals: (I) the distinction between open and closed lexical classes, and (2) nested constituent structure. In the case of the former, it is argued that the selective role of the closed class items is primarily to minimise the amount of redundancy in the lexicon. In the case of the latter, the emergence of nested phrase structure is argued to have been a by-product of selection for the ability to perform insertion operations on sequences - a function that plausibly pre-dated the emergence of modem language competence. The evidence for these claims is not just that these properties perform plausibly fitness-related functions, but that they appear to perform them in a way that is improbably optimal. A number of interesting findings follow when examining the selective role of the closed classes. In particular, case, agreement and the requirement that sentences have subjects are expected consequences of an optimised lexicon, the theory thereby relating these properties to natural selection for the first time. It also motivates the view that language variation is confined to parameters associated with closed class items, in turn explaining why parameter confiicts fail to arise in bilingualism. The simplest representation of sequences that is optimised for efficient insertions can represent both nested constituent structure and long-distance dependencies in a unified way, thus suggesting that movement is intrinsic to the representation of constituency rather than an 'imperfection'. The basic structure of phrases also follows from this representation and helps to explain the interaction between case and theta assignment. These findings bring together a surprising array of phenomena, reinforcing its correctness as the representational basis of syntactic structures. The diagnostic overcomes shortcomings in the approach of Pinker and Bloom (1990), who argued that the appearance of 'adaptive complexity' in the design of a trait could be used as evidence of its selective function, but there is no reason to expect the refinements of natural selection to increase complexity in any given case. Optimality considerations are also applied in this thesis to filter theories of the nature of unobserved linguistic representations as well as theories of their functions. In this context, it is argued that, despite Chomsky's (1995) resistance to the idea, it is possible to motivate the guiding principles of the Minimalist Program in terms of evolutionary optimisation, especially if we allow the possibility that properties of language were selected for non-communicative functions and that redundancy is sometimes costly rather than beneficial.

This study aims to show that insights from Critical Linguistics and discourse analytic tools can be used to build an integrated translator training curriculum. It shows how text analysis is empir~cally put to work in delivering model training for university level translator training. The research shows how the tools used for linguistic criticism can be implemented in evaluating translated work. The work falls into two parts: theoretical and practical, where the former is dedicated to show what the different theories in the discipline have achieved, and tries to demonstrate how they can be eclectically employed in translator training schemes. Meanwhile, the latter shows the implementation of as many as possible of those ideas, and evaluates them through students' work. The research argues that academically trained translators show measurable improveme~ts in performance.

This doctoral thesis explores simultaneous interpreting (SI) as a social practice by investigating ED institutional hegemony and interpreter axiology in the institutional setting of the European Parliament (EP). Theoretical research is complemented by a corpus study of the interplay between these two forces in SI-mediated EP plenary debates. A multilayered understanding of discourse as a set of practices is developed before exploring the relationship between ideology and axiology manifest in discourse manifest in text. Bakhtin's term dialogised heteroglossia is used in this context to refer to the centripetal forces and centrifugal forces of language. The Gramscian theory of hegemony as shifting alliances is applied to ED institutional hegemony, before the concept of axiology is introduced to address subjective interpreter ethics and evaluation. Corpus analysis concentrates on intertextuality (manifest and latent intertextuality), lexical repetition of key institutional terms; and metaphor strings characteristic of ED institutional hegemony. Results suggest that ED institutional hegemony is strengthened by SI, and that interpreter mediation in the form of interpreter axiology occurs and is constrained by institutional hegemony. This 'socially orientated' approach therefore contradicts the conduit view of communication. In this study, the simultaneous interpreter is shown to be an additional subjective actor in heteroglot communication.

The main purpose of this thesis is to derive empirical evidence Jor the didactic value of translating text in context by conducting an experiment involving final-year undergraduate students who study translation (English-Arabie-English) as a basic component of the curriculum. A number of theoretical frameworks are invoked, most notably those of the discourse model elaborated by Hatim and Mason (1990) (1997) and of House's text analysis model (1997). The experiment design draws on Hatim's multistage curriculum translation design (2000: 182) which consists of various stages representing an increasing degree of evaluativeness and difficulty. Following each major phase of the experiment (covering register, text types, genre and discourse), the students are evaluated using the pre-test / post-test technique and interviews. It was hoped that the experiment would shed light first on the students' mode of assimilating of each of these areas of context and second on the effect of the training in the development of an overall discourse awareness. As documented in the chapters on analysis and conclusions, very convincing evidence empirically emerged which indicate the· inestimable value of incorporating text, discourse and genre insights into the training of translators.

The aims of this study are to investigate the interactive strategies of the translators in the genre of popular science and the potential influence of translation practice on nontranslated popular science writings. The theoretical framework of interaction in written texts and translations is based on work on text-linguistics, pragmatics, discourse analysis, and target-oriented and inter~ctional translation studies. The theoretical framework of the relationship between translations and non-translations draws mainly from polysystem theory and other empirical studies. The investigation is based on corpora comprising texts from Scientific American magazine (English and Chinese editions) and Academia Sillica Balanced Corpus of Modem Chinese. This corpus-based methodology is adopted to facilitate the observation of recurrent patterns of Interactive trends in a large body of texts. Both quantitative and qualitative methods are involved. Whereas quantitative analysis points out trends of interaction based on numerical evidence, qualitative analysis focuses on contextualised factors and seeks to explain the interactive phenomena. The textual findings of interactive patterns are then further supported by paratextual evidence. The study finds that the Chinese translators of popular science writings tend to take an active approach in mediating the gap between source text writers and target readers. The translators use more interactive strategies than the source text writers to involve the readers in the texts. Another important finding is that, based on the use of selected interactive features, we suggest that the Chinese popular science writings have been influenced by the interactive strategies used by the'translators; and have begun to show trends of more active writer-reader interaction which are not seen in iraditional popular science writings in Taiwan.