This thesis presents a study of Pakistani undergraduate students’ motivation to learn English, using Dörnyei’s (2009) L2 Motivational Self System as the main theoretical framework, while including some context-specific factors. This study has two primary aims; firstly to analyse the usefulness of Dörnyei’s model for describing the L2 motivation of a sample of Pakistani students, and secondly to capture other contextual and relational motivational factors which may be salient in this under-researched context. The study applied a mixed method approach. A structured questionnaire survey was designed and administered to over 1000 undergraduates in seven public sector universities of Central Punjab, Pakistan. Both descriptive and inferential statistics were used to analyse the questionnaire data. In addition, twenty semi-structured interviews were also conducted and their data was analysed using thematic analysis. The study provided considerable support for the validity and effectiveness/relevance of the L2 Motivational Self System in the Pakistani context. Participants’ L2 learning attitudes and ideal L2 selves emerged as the strongest contributors to their reported learning efforts. Both quantitative and qualitative data revealed that Milieu strongly influences participants’ future selves and L2 motivation. The qualitative data further elaborated that English-related social values and pressures were also mediated by significant others. Moreover, a proposed new construct – National Interest – was also found useful in capturing the in-depth view of the contemporary L2 motivation of the participants, highlighting the need to understand the association of English with their national identities and interests. The data revealed that these Pakistani learners’ image of themselves as future English-users is associated with a desire for the socioeconomic development, internal harmony and the international reputation of their country in a challenging global context. Overall, the study presented a combination of personal and relational factors strongly affecting participants’ L2 motivation.

This thesis investigates the relationship which both academic vocabulary and lexical bundles have to academic performance at university. While academic vocabulary is defined in terms of the University Word List (Coxhead, 2000), lexical bundles are identified as groups of four words that commonly co-occur, such as on the other hand and as a result of. A corpus of student essay writing in a single discipline, psychology, was developed over the course of a three-year undergraduate degree. To provide a benchmark against which to compare the student academic writing, a corpus of published articles in the same discipline was developed. The VocabProfile program (Cobb, 2002) was used to establish the density of academic vocabulary in the student essays. Similarly, the density of lexical bundle use was analysed by means of WordSmith Tools (Scott, 2012). The densities were then correlated against students’ academic performance as measured by their essay results. Comparisons were also made between the use of academic vocabulary and lexical bundles by first- and additional-language speakers, and by first- and third-year students. A keyness analysis enabled comparisons of academic vocabulary and bundle usage by high and low achievers. An additional aspect of this study was the comparison of densities of academic vocabulary and lexical bundles found in the IELTS writing test and in student essays, and the correlation of IELTS reading and writing test scores to students’ academic performance. The students’ vocabulary knowledge was also tested by the application of receptive and productive vocabulary tests, and the results compared to their academic performance. Results indicate that the 10 000-word level is a stronger predictor of academic performance than either the 5000-word level or academic vocabulary, and that there is a significant relationship between the density of lexical bundle use by students and their academic performance. Both vocabulary measures are therefore arguably better predictors of academic performance than the IELTS test scores. / Linguistics and Modern Languages / D. Litt. et Phil. (Linguistics)

Beginning with Plato's expulsion of the poets in the Republic, this dissertation ' looks at the often hostile, yet also symbiotic, relationship between·poetry and philosophy. Aristotle's 'response' to Plato is regarded as a significant origin of literary theory. Nietzsche's critique of Western philosophy as being an attempt to suppress its own metaphoricity, leads to a revaluation of truth and consequently of the privileging of philosophy over poetry. Post-structuralism sometimes overemphasizes this constitutive force of metaphoricity, at the expense of conceptual modes. However, Derrida's notion of philosophy as play retains a balance between concept and metaphor: there is no attempt to transcendentally ground philosophy, but neither is it reduced to a merely metaphorical discourse. Finally, Wittgenstein's notion of meaning as determined by use can help us distinguish pragmatically between poetry and philosophy by looking at the contexts in which they function. / Linguistics and Modern Languages / M.A. (Linguistics)

Beginning with Plato's expulsion of the poets in the Republic, this dissertation ' looks at the often hostile, yet also symbiotic, relationship between·poetry and philosophy. Aristotle's 'response' to Plato is regarded as a significant origin of literary theory. Nietzsche's critique of Western philosophy as being an attempt to suppress its own metaphoricity, leads to a revaluation of truth and consequently of the privileging of philosophy over poetry. Post-structuralism sometimes overemphasizes this constitutive force of metaphoricity, at the expense of conceptual modes. However, Derrida's notion of philosophy as play retains a balance between concept and metaphor: there is no attempt to transcendentally ground philosophy, but neither is it reduced to a merely metaphorical discourse. Finally, Wittgenstein's notion of meaning as determined by use can help us distinguish pragmatically between poetry and philosophy by looking at the contexts in which they function. / Linguistics and Modern Languages / M.A. (Linguistics)