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The Global ETD Search service is a free service for researchers
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Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations.
Our metadata is collected from universities around the world. If you manage a university/consortium/country archive and want to be added, details can be found on the NDLTD website.
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Toward a unified account of metonymySato, Ayako January 2017 (has links)
From the perspective of cognitive linguistics, metonymy is a conceptual operation in which one entity maps onto the other entity within a single domain at the conceptual level. There are two related perspectives as to what motivates metonymy: metonymy as having a referential function and metonymy as being motivated by conceptual contiguity. However, there are some linguistic expressions that are less readily identifiable as being motivated in one of these ways. For example, many scholars (e.g., Gibbs 1990, Barnden 2010) argues that example (1) The creampuff didn’t even show up has a referential function, like metonymy, but is, in fact, an instance of metaphor. Analogously, in (2) Ann has her mother’s eyes, Warren (1999) argues the relationship between the inherited characteristic is motivated by both perceptual similarity and conceptual contiguity. What these two examples reveal is the following: First, metaphor can exhibit symptoms normally attributed to metonymy, and second, there appears not to always be a clear distinction between where metonymy ends and metaphor begins. This observation leads to a number of outstanding questions. First, is metonymy in fact a unified phenomenon? Second, if not, how are metonymies motivated? Third, how is metonymy related to other figurative phenomena, especially metaphor? I argue that metonymy, while constituting a unified phenomenon, nevertheless exhibits variation. In point of fact, I claim that examples (1) and (2) amount to distinct types of metonymy, which lie on a continuum. To answer the second question, I examine the nature of metonymic compositionality. I do so to show how metonymic linguistic ‘vehicles’ interface with the (nonlinguistic) conceptual level in the course of figurative language understanding. Finally, I explore the relationship between metaphor and metonymy. I argue that they are related in terms of occupying a continuum with different linguistic expressions and, on occasion, exhibiting symptoms of both.
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Nation's vocabulary levels test and its successors : a re-appraisalKamimoto, Tadamitsu January 2008 (has links)
The Vocabulary Levels Test (VLT) was constructed by Paul Nation in 1983, and was expanded and revised by Schmitt (2000) and Schmitt, Schmitt, & Clapham (2001). The test has been used very widely. In spite of that, the central issues of the VLT have not been satisfactorilya ddressedt;h ey all derive from its matching-formatc onsisting of six words and three definitions as a cluster. Those issues are concerned with local item dependence within a cluster, the relationship between target words and distractors, and guessing. The purpose of the thesisw was to reappraise the VLT by addressing them. A series of experiments were conducted for that purpose. The quantitative and qualitative empirical evidence shows that items within a cluster cannot be regarded as independent. The findings also show that distractors cannot play the role of target words. Protocol analyses indicate that learners, regardless of the proficiency level, gain some scores through a variety of guessing strategies, implying that the VLT has the tendency to overestimate their vocabulary knowledge. An attempt was carried out to control guessing by confidence rating and Shizuka's (2000) Clustered Objective Probability Scoring (COPS) method. The results claim that the proposed correction procedure looks extremely promising for the measurement of test-takers' true vocabulary knowledge. The thesis suggests that if the VLT adopts this correction procedure, the test will continue its role as a vocabulary measurement tool in the foreseeable future.
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Thai second language writing : the development of language knowledge and cross-cultural influenceWoodward, Nigel January 2014 (has links)
A key element in improving both the assessment and learning of English as a second language (ESL) in English-medium schools is a deeper understanding of how language knowledge develops. However, relatively few studies have investigated the development of academic language in learners with ESL, and there appear to be no studies of this kind focusing on Thai learners. This study investigates the language knowledge of Thai learners of English in an English-medium international school in Bangkok, Thailand. The objective of the study was to understand both the developmental trajectory of features of academic language and the influence of Thai culture on English writing. The writing of two groups of Thai learners in year 9 of secondary school, Early Immersion (6-10 years in English-medium education) and Late Immersion (3-4 years of English-medium education) was compared. The writing of these two groups was also compared to that of English mother tongue (EMT) writers of similar age and the Thai writing of a group of Thai students of similar age studying in a Thai secondary school. The broad developmental pattern of Thai learners of English in this environment can be summarized as a movement from simplicity, through complexity to control and towards increasing flexibility. Late Immersion writers have achieved a degree of complexity but still lack control of some basic elements of clause structure. Early Immersion writers have achieved control of these features and are moving towards increasing flexibility, marked by the developing use of logical and experiential grammatical metaphor. Some features differentiating the English writing of Thai and English mother tongue writers can be best explained as the results of cultural influence. These include a tendency for Thai writers to make relatively frequent use of modal verbs with a deontic function when writing on certain topics and to be more indirect and less explicit when expressing opinions. The findings of the study have implications for both assessment and teaching. Assessment tools for both EMT and ESL writers would benefit from a more direct and precise reference to linguistic elements. Similarly, when teaching learners with ESL alongside EMT learners in secondary English classrooms, planning and teaching that includes exploration of how the grammar of English enables effective communication would arguably be appropriate for both groups.
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Language living on the margins and beyond : a historical pragmatic study of marginal vocabulary use in eighteenth-century EnglishBut, Roxanne January 2015 (has links)
This thesis investigates the use of marginal vocabulary in eighteenth-century texts from a historical pragmatic perspective. The kind of marginal vocabulary that I will be specifically looking at is the special terminology associated with thieves, beggars and the low life known as ‘cant’. The aim of this study is to examine whether and how marginal vocabulary is used in eighteenth-century texts, and how this language evolves over the course of the century. Evidence of marginal vocabulary use in the eighteenth century was elicited from two electronic resources, namely the Old Bailey Proceedings Online (1674-1913) and the Eighteenth Century Collections Online (ECCO) and then qualitatively examined through historical discourse analysis. In the Old Bailey Proceedings Online, I searched for the term ‘cant’ and a number of other marginal terms to find evidence of the actual use of this kind of language in these courtroom texts. As for ECCO, I conducted a diagnostic search of a particular marginal term (‘cull’) to trace the extent to which this term and other marginal terms are used beyond the Old Bailey texts in other eighteenth-century genres. One of the key findings is that marginal vocabulary in the Old Bailey texts is associated with the criminal underclass and reproduced from real-life contexts for specific communicative purposes. Evidence of marginal vocabulary in the ECCO texts shows the expansion of these terms into the wider print culture of the eighteenth century. The marginal vocabulary terms have become ‘public’ words because they have moved beyond the highly specific criminal context. Some of these expressions are reproduced, metalinguistically commented upon and appropriated in a wide variety of popular texts, such as prose fiction, drama and life narratives. In the process, the terms may or may not lose their specialised meaning.
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An action research study with low proficiency learners in Japan to promote the learning of vocabulary through collocationsAntle, Joshua January 2015 (has links)
This action research (AR) study explores an alternative approach to vocabulary instruction for low-proficiency university students: a change from targeting individual words from the general service list (West, 1953) to targeting frequent verb + noun collocations. A review of the literature indicated a focus on collocations instead of individual words could potentially address the students’ productive challenges with targeted vocabulary. Over the course of four reflective cycles, this thesis addresses three main aspects of collocation instruction. First, it examines if the students believe studying collocations is more useful than studying individual lexical items. Second, the thesis investigates whether a focus on collocations will lead to improvements in spoken fluency. This is tested through a comparison of a pre-intervention spoken assessment task with the findings from the same task completed 15 weeks later, after the intervention. Third, the thesis explores different procedures for the instructing of collocations under the classroom constraints of a university teaching context. In the first of the four reflective cycles, data is collected which indicates that the students believe a focus on collocations is superior to only teaching individual lexical items, that in the students’ opinion their productive abilities with the targeted structures has improved, and that delexicalized verb collocations are problematic for low-proficiency students. Reflective cycle two produces evidence indicating that productive tasks are superior to receptive tasks for fluency development. In reflective cycle three, productively challenging classroom tasks are investigated further and the findings indicate that tasks with higher productive demands result in greater improvements in spoken fluency. The fourth reflective cycle uses a different type of collocation list: frequent adjective + noun collocations. Despite this change, the findings remain consistent in that certain types of collocations are problematic for low-proficiency language learners and that the evidence shows productive tasks are necessary to improve the students’ spoken ability.
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Lexical levels and formulaic language : an exploration of undergraduate students' vocabulary and written production of delexical multiword unitsScheepers, Ruth Angela 11 1900 (has links)
This study investigates undergraduate students’ vocabulary size, and their use of formulaic language. Using the Vocabulary Levels Test (Laufer and Nation 1995), it measures the vocabulary size of native and non-native speakers of English and explores relationships between this and course of study, gender, age and home language, and their academic performance. A corpus linguistic approach is then applied to compare student writers’ uses of three high-frequency verbs (have, make and take) relative to expert writers. Multiword units (MWUs) featuring these verbs are identified and analysed, focusing on delexical MWUs as one very specific aspect of depth of vocabulary knowledge. Student and expert use of these MWUs is compared. Grammatically and semantically deviant MWUs are also analysed. Finally, relationships between the size and depth of students’ vocabulary knowledge, and between the latter and academic performance, are explored.
Findings reveal that Literature students had larger vocabularies than Law students, females knew more words than males, and older students knew more than younger ones. Importantly, results indicated a relationship between vocabulary size and academic performance. Literature students produced more correct MWUs and fewer errors than Law students. Correlations suggest that the smaller students’ vocabulary, the poorer the depth of their vocabulary is likely to be. Although no robust relationship between vocabulary depth and academic performance emerged, there was evidence of an indirect link between academic performance and correct use of MWUs.
In bringing together traditional methods of measuring vocabulary size with an investigation of depth of vocabulary knowledge using corpus analysis methods, this study provides further evidence of the importance of vocabulary knowledge to academic performance. It contributes to debates on the value of a sound knowledge of high-frequency vocabulary and a developing knowledge of at least 5000 words to academic performance, and the analysis and quantification of errors in MWUs adds to our understanding of novice writers’ difficulties with these combinations. The study also explores new ways of investigating relationships between size and depth of vocabulary knowledge, and between depth of vocabulary knowledge and academic performance. / Linguistics and Modern Languages / D. Litt. et Phil. (Linguistics)
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Lexical levels and formulaic language : an exploration of undergraduate students' vocabulary and written production of delexical multiword unitsScheepers, Ruth Angela 11 1900 (has links)
This study investigates undergraduate students’ vocabulary size, and their use of formulaic language. Using the Vocabulary Levels Test (Laufer and Nation 1995), it measures the vocabulary size of native and non-native speakers of English and explores relationships between this and course of study, gender, age and home language, and their academic performance. A corpus linguistic approach is then applied to compare student writers’ uses of three high-frequency verbs (have, make and take) relative to expert writers. Multiword units (MWUs) featuring these verbs are identified and analysed, focusing on delexical MWUs as one very specific aspect of depth of vocabulary knowledge. Student and expert use of these MWUs is compared. Grammatically and semantically deviant MWUs are also analysed. Finally, relationships between the size and depth of students’ vocabulary knowledge, and between the latter and academic performance, are explored.
Findings reveal that Literature students had larger vocabularies than Law students, females knew more words than males, and older students knew more than younger ones. Importantly, results indicated a relationship between vocabulary size and academic performance. Literature students produced more correct MWUs and fewer errors than Law students. Correlations suggest that the smaller students’ vocabulary, the poorer the depth of their vocabulary is likely to be. Although no robust relationship between vocabulary depth and academic performance emerged, there was evidence of an indirect link between academic performance and correct use of MWUs.
In bringing together traditional methods of measuring vocabulary size with an investigation of depth of vocabulary knowledge using corpus analysis methods, this study provides further evidence of the importance of vocabulary knowledge to academic performance. It contributes to debates on the value of a sound knowledge of high-frequency vocabulary and a developing knowledge of at least 5000 words to academic performance, and the analysis and quantification of errors in MWUs adds to our understanding of novice writers’ difficulties with these combinations. The study also explores new ways of investigating relationships between size and depth of vocabulary knowledge, and between depth of vocabulary knowledge and academic performance. / Linguistics and Modern Languages / D. Litt. et Phil. (Linguistics)
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An assessment of student's English vocabulary levels and an exploration of the vocabulary profile of teacher's spoken discourse in an international high schoolCreighton, Graham Robert 10 1900 (has links)
In many international schools where English is the language of learning and teaching there are large percentages of students whose first language is not English. Many of these students may have low vocabulary levels which inhibits their chances of taking full advantage of their education. Low vocabulary levels can be a particular problem for students in mainstream classes where fluent English speaking teachers are using English to teach content areas of Mathematics, Science and History. Not only do students have to comprehend the low-frequency, academic and technical vocabulary pertaining to the subject, but they also need to know the higher frequency vocabulary that makes up general English usage. If students’ vocabulary levels fall too far below the vocabulary levels with which their teachers are speaking, then their chance of comprehending the topic is small, as is their chance of succeeding in their subjects.
This study has two broad aims. Firstly, I have set out to assess the English vocabulary levels of students at an international school where English is the language of learning and teaching. The majority of students at this school do not have English as their first language. The second aim of this study is to explore the vocabulary profile of the teachers’ spoken discourse at the research school. By gaining a better understanding of the nature of teacher discourse – specifically the percentage of high, mid and low-frequency vocabulary, as well as academic vocabulary that they use – English as a Second Language (ESL) teachers will be in a stronger position to identify what the vocabulary learning task is and be able to assist students in reaching the vocabulary levels necessary to make sense of their lessons. This study revealed a large gap between the generally low vocabulary levels of ESL students and the vocabulary levels spoken by their teachers. As a result the need for explicit vocabulary instruction and learning is shown to be very important in English medium (international) schools, where there are large numbers of students whose first language is not English. / Linguistics and Modern Languages / M.A. (Applied Linguistics)
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