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This dissertation investigates the acquisition of certain stress patterns in English by Mexican Spanish native speakers. Three tasks were designed to test the participants' ability to assign and perceive stress accurately: a production, an identification and a repetition task. Several word categories are used each contains real and unreal words. This research attempts to shed light on the process of stress acquisition, hence the English proficiency of the participants ranges from beginners to advanced learners and a control group of English native speakers. The results indicate that while the participants treat real and nonce words equally, stress is not equally easy/difficult to assign or perceive in all word categories. Namely, in the categories where stress falls further than the third syllable from the right-edge of the word, the L2 learners are less accurate at perceiving and assigning stress, possibly due to the fact that stress assignment in Spanish is restricted to the three syllables on the right-edge of the word. What is more, as the L2 learners' English proficiency increases, their ability to assign and perceive stress correctly improves. This ability however does not remain unchanged: the results show regression in the most advanced L2 learners which could indicate attrition of their ability to assign stress in the L2. The scores from the repetition task show that the L2 learners are able to perceive L2 stress accurately from an early stage of the learning process; hence the errors made in the identification task (identifying the syllable that bears stress) should not be interpreted as the result of their inability to perceive stress but rather as the result of the cognitive complexity of the task.

Speechreading is a complex skill affected by both the observer's method of extracting visual speech information and talker-specific variation in speech production. This thesis focuses upon accent, a factor that can influence both an observer's viewing strategy and talker speechreadability. Auditory research demonstrates that an unfamiliar accent reduces speech intelligibility. The primary aim here was to determine whether accent type, familiarity or variation would alter visual speech intelligibility with consequential effects upon speechreading performance. Experiments 1 and 2 considered visual discrimination of native and non-native accented speech and the influence of non-native accent upon speechreading performance. Results indicated that observers were able to utilise visual cues for discrimination and were significantly poorer at speechreading a non-native accent. Experiments 3, 4 and 5 examined the influence of regional accent on speechreading performance. Results indicated that visual speech performance was significantly worse for Glaswegian-accented talkers than for talkers with a Nottingham accent. However, no clear advantage for accent familiarity was found. Experiment 6 examined the influence of accent type and talker variability upon speechreading performance. Accent type was consistently the dominant influence upon speechreading performance, above familiarity and variation. Experiments 7, 8, 9 and 10 examined the influence of exposure, context and repetition upon the effects of a Glaswegian accent. Here, the effect of the Glaswegian accent on talker speechreadability was reduced by context and repetition, but not removed entirely. In conclusion, while visual accent type mostly determines visual speech intelligibility, accent familiarity mostly determines auditory speech perception. Although spoken accent effects can be quickly reduced through exposure, no such effect was found here in the visual modality. Both context and repetition were necessary to improve the intelligibility of accented speech. This indicates a potential difference in the processing of accented speech across the two modalities and has implications for speechreading training.

Hydroponics basically is the method of growing plants using mineral nutrient solutions, in water, without soil. Vertical nutrient film technique (NFT) is one of the most used hydroponic technique that has constant flow of nutrient solution. In this study the effects of different support medium on strawberry quality and yield using vertical NFT in glass greenhouse was investigated. NFT-only system was compared to rockwool, coco fiber, perlite and expanded clay as supporting medium for strawberry production. Parameters such as weight of product, amount of product, rate of marketable product, and including physico-chemical properties such as pH, rigidity, color, dry matter amount, EC, vitamin C, sugar content, resistance to certain pathogens were observed among all supporting medium trials. NFT-only system significantly differed from other supporting medium trails by most of the parameters including fruit number per plant, average fruit weight, toughness of the fruit, vitamin C amount, sugar amount and finally soluble solid material amount in water . Revealing the effects of supporting medium on strawberry production shed light on how should NFT must be applied to fruit growing.

Η παρούσα εργασία βασίζεται στην παραδοχή ότι οι ποικίλες υφολογικές επιλογές ενός ομιλητή, συμπεριλαμβανομένων των προσωδιακών του επιλογών, λειτουργούν ως ενδείκτες συμφραστικοποίησης (contextualization cues) (βλ. Gumperz, 1982). Ως δείκτες συμφραστικοποίησης, καθοδηγούν τον ακροατή να εντάξει το λόγο που προσλαμβάνει κατάλληλα στην περίσταση, αλλά και στα κατάλληλα γνωστικά και γλωσσικά συμφραζόμενα ώστε να καταλήξει στην προσδοκώμενη ερμηνεία. Βασική υπόθεση της εργασίας είναι ότι μέσα σε χιουμοριστικές συνομιλιακές αφηγήσεις, συγκεκριμένα προσωδιακά χαρακτηριστικά μπορούν να αποτελέσουν δείκτες συμφραστικοποίησης για το χιούμορ (βλ. Norrick, 2004). Βασιζόμενη στην Γενική Θεωρία για το Γλωσσικό Χιούμορ (GTVH) (βλ. Attardo 1994, 2001), κατά την οποία το χιούμορ στηρίζεται στην ασυμβατότητα ανάμεσα σε αυτό που αναμένεται να συμβεί και σε αυτό που τελικά συμβαίνει, χρησιμοποιώ ως βασική μονάδα ανάλυσης των αφηγήσεών μου τη χιουμοριστική φράση (jab line), η οποία θεωρείται ότι εμπεριέχει την γνωστική αντίθεση στην οποία στηρίζεται το χιούμορ. Στόχος μου είναι να δείξω αν συγκεκριμένα προσωδιακά χαρακτηριστικά, όπως οι παύσεις, η ταχύτητα και η ένταση, συμβάλλουν στην (ανα)δείξη του χιούμορ μέσα σε μία αφήγηση, και αν κάτι τέτοιο γίνεται με συστηματικό τρόπο. Με άλλα λόγια, στόχος μου είναι να δείξω αν το χιούμορ οριοθετείται και προβάλλεται προσωδιακά συγκριτικά με το υπόλοιπο μη χιουμοριστικό κείμενο, και ποια είναι αυτά τα προσωδιακά χαρακτηριστικά που συμβάλλουν σε αυτό. / -