No description available.

The topic chain is an important concept used in narratives. However, its content is not very clear. This thesis mainly investigates a kind of topic chain in which the topic is introduced by Locative-Verb-Noun Phrase (LVNP) sentences. LVNP sentences have a locative phrase as the surface subject, followed by the main verb with the suffix zhe (the duration marker, DUR) or le (the perfect tense marker, PRT), and then the subject or the object. Following structural analysis and by surveying actual data--a novel, we examined and based on the distributions of ZA, PA, and NA which occur in topic chains to generalize three basic patterns and one derived pattern to explain their inner structures. The findings show that topic chains can be categorized according to the patterns they show. Besides, different types of topic chains show different inner structures. By describing the inner structures, the topic chain is not just a concept at all and we learn its actual content more clearly.

Balancing the rights of the individual to lead a self-determined life while accommodating traditional identity groups is a central goal of liberal society. The modernity argument suggests that processes within modernity are capable of liberalizing societies. The emergence of modern information technology has drastically increased the speed of the liberalizing influence of modernity to the point that this goal is threatened. However, using tools found within discourse theory, traditional identity groups may be able to mitigate these incoming influences to such a degree as to rebalance these liberal goals.

<p>This research aimed to give an account of the development of concepts of text and discourse and the various approaches to analysis of texts and discourses, as this is reflected in core linguistic literature since the late 1960s. The idea was to focus specifically on literature that notes the development stimulated by a proliferation of electronic media. Secondly, this research aimed to describe the nature of electronic news texts found on the internet in comparison to an equivalent printed version, namely texts printed in newspapers and simultaneously on the newspaper website.</p>

This dissertation examines: (a) the discourses of femininity circulating on a female skateboarding blog produced by the Skirtboarders (a group of women skateboarders based in Montréal, Canada); (b) the ways in which the Skirtboarders use Internet blogging (which I label “community media”) to contest (sexist) dominant discursive constructions of sportswomen deployed in mainstream and alternative media; and (c) the ways in which users read and make sense of the Skirtboarders’ blog. For this project, I collected 262 blog posts, including 1128 associated comments, conducted semi-structured interviews with eight Skirtboarders and four users of the blog and incorporated some observational notes. This information was then subjected to discourse analysis informed by the theoretical perspectives of Michel Foucault. This research makes a significant contribution to a growing body of literature in the sociology of sport exploring media (re)presentations of bodies, especially women’s bodies, and lifestyle sports because it is one of the rare studies that goes beyond doing an analysis of media texts – it also uncovers the intentions of the producers of the texts and, in addition, examines the effects of the media discourses for audiences (herein referred to as users). My findings reveal that the Skirtboarders offer something different than mainstream and alternative skateboarding media (re)presentations (i.e., I examined what narratives the Skirtboarders produce about themselves to understand how they appropriate, accommodate or resist gender discourses). The women who produced the blog consciously and purposely challenged dominant discursive fragments. Although users considered the blog inspirational for promoting female skateboarding, they had diverse readings of the Skirtboarders’ attempts to reflexively start a “movement” and, in doing so, construct and circulate a collective identity. I therefore suggest that the Skirtboarders’ blog is one of many political tools and strategies required to change the landscape of the global female skateboarding world. Ultimately, I argue that the Internet is a space where women can have access to predominantly masculine sport and create more fluid definitions of sporting femininity. It provides women with opportunities to control their own (re)presentations, which will challenge male dominated institutions such as mainstream and alternative media organizations. / Cette dissertation étudie : a) les discours sur la féminité qui circulent sur le blogue des Skirtboarders (un groupe de femmes planchistes de Montréal, Canada); b) comment les Skirtboarders utilisent le blogue (que je nomme « média communautaire ») pour contester les discours dominants (sexistes) sur le corps sportif féminin déployées dans le mass média et les média alternatifs; et c) comment les utilisatrices interprètent et accordent un sens au blogue des Skirtboarders. Pour ce projet : j’ai recueillis 262 articles de forum sur le blogue, incluant les 1128 commentaires; effectué des entrevues semi-dirigées avec huit Skirtboarders et quatre utilisatrices du blogue; incorporé des notes d’observation. Ces informations ont ensuite été soumises à une analyse du discours inspirée de la perspective théorique de Michel Foucault. Cette recherche apporte une contribution importante à une littérature croissante en sociologie du sport explorant les (re)présentations du corps, spécialement les corps féminins, et les sports alternatifs; car il s’agit d’une des rares études qui s’aventure au-delà de l’analyse des textes médiatiques. Elle porte aussi sur les intentions des productrices des textes et examine en plus les effets des discours médiatiques sur l’auditoire (c’est-à-dire les utilisatrices). Mes résultats révèlent que les Skirtboarders offrent un contenu qui diffère des (re)présentations du skateboarding dans le mass média et les média alternatifs (par ex., j’ai examiné quels récits les Skirtboarders produisent à propos d’elles-mêmes pour comprendre comment elles s’approprient, s’accommodent ou résistent aux discours sur le genre). Les femmes qui produisent le blogue contestent consciemment et délibérément les fragments discursifs dominants. Quoique les utilisatrices considèrent le blogue inspirant pour la promotion du skateboarding auprès des femmes, elles offrent diverses lectures de la tentative réflexive des Skirtboarders d’initier un «mouvement » et, en ce faisant, de construire et de propager une identité collective. Je suggère donc que le blogue des Skirtboarders est un parmi plusieurs outils politiques et stratégiques requis pour changer le paysage de la scène mondiale des femmes planchistes. Ultimement, j’avance que l’Internet est un espace où les femmes peuvent avoir accès au sport dominé par les hommes et créer des définitions fluides de la féminité sportive. L’Internet offre des occasions aux femmes de contrôler leurs propres (re)présentations, lesquelles contesteront les institutions majoritairement masculines telles que les organisations de mass média et de média alternatifs.

Although the United Kingdom is committed to the protection of refugees and the integration of migrants into society, many aspects of the asylum system actually prevent access to refuge or create barriers to integration. Extant research on this topic has often paid little attention to the role of discourse in legitimising particular asylum policies and notions of integration or has otherwise neglected the social functions of asylum seeker and refugee discourse. This thesis addressed these gaps by exploring the discourse of majority group members and asylum seekers / refugees, paying attention to the relationship between place and identity and the ways that notions of intercultural contact were constructed. Semi-structured interviews were undertaken with seventeen people who work to support asylum seekers and refugees, fifteen asylum seekers / refugees and thirteen Scottish locals who reside in the areas where asylum seekers are housed. The data were analysed using discourse analysis, focusing on the ways that particular narratives and descriptions function to justify or criticise certain policies or sets of social relations. The analysis illustrated that the presence of asylum seekers could be justified through portraying their countries of origin as dangerous and the host society as problem-free, whereas the presence of asylum seekers was resisted through portraying the host society as ‘full’. When discussing antagonism towards asylum seekers, interviewees constructed this as stemming from ‘ignorance’, which functioned to portray the behaviour as unwarranted while emphasising the potential for positive social change. Similarly, asylum seekers’ and refugees’ accounts of violence tended to deny or downplay racial motivation, or produce accusations of racism in a tentative or reluctant manner, implying that a ‘taboo’ on racial accusations exists even in cases of violence. The analysis also illustrated how constructions of ‘integration’ perform social actions, such as highlighting the responsibility of asylum seekers or the host society. The analysis showed how the refugee status determination process could be criticised through references to a ‘culture of disbelief’, claims that it was racist or portrayals of cultural differences that undermine the process. The right of asylum seekers to work was advocated through portraying it as consistent with the national interest. Aspects of the asylum system related to destitution, detention and deportation were criticised through portraying them as ‘tools’ that treated asylum seekers inhumanely and by constructing asylum seekers in humane ways such as ‘families’ or as ‘human’. Overall the results illustrated that, in the context of asylum seekers, notions of identity and place are linked so that constructions of place constitute identity, in the sense of portraying people as legitimately in need of refuge, and these constructions can work to justify or criticise asylum policies. Results also illustrated that victims of seemingly racist violence may construct their accounts in ways that deny or downplay racial motivations, making racist behaviour difficult to identify and challenge. The analyses suggested that ‘two-way’ constructions of integration may function to overcome the view that asylum seekers have ‘special privileges’ over other members of the community and emphasise the responsibilities of the host society. Portraying punitive asylum policies as ‘inhumane’, and constructing asylum seekers in humane ways, provides a potential strategy for reforming aspects of the asylum system.

This thesis reports on a research project investigating how a sample of eight teachers of P2 children in Scotland encouraged dialogic interaction in their reading groups while following prescriptive policy. The research is based on a detailed analysis of the discourse of reading sessions conducted by the eight teachers, and is informed by previous research on oral language development, the role of dialogue in children’s learning, and the relationships between reading development and classroom discussion. The project uses mixed methods, applied to a framework derived from exchange structure research. Patterns of interaction have been examined quantitatively and qualitatively, with a particular focus on learners’ initiations, the making of text-life links by learners and teachers, and the extent to which these are integrated into the reading experience by the teachers’ use of contingent responses. The discourse analysis section of the findings is preceded by a preliminary examination of the teachers’ beliefs about classroom talk, and is followed by discussion of their views on the usefulness and adaptability of the research process itself as a means for enabling them to make their reading sessions more interactive. The project finds that the interactivity of the reading sessions is shaped by the teachers’ moment-by-moment decision-making about the control of centrifugal and centripetal forces in discourse; in particular, how far to allow children’s personal responses to the text to deflect group attention from the central goals of skill development and text coverage laid down by reading policy. The teachers reported their own experiences of teaching reading as being characterised by a tension between encouraging children’s personal engagement with, and responses to, reading material, and fulfilling the demands of a prescriptive curriculum within severe time constraints.

This thesis contributes to the body of research on listenership. It accomplishes this through an investigation of the functions of laughter in the listening behaviour of participants in Japanese interaction. The majority of studies concerning conversational interactions have focused on the role of the speaker rather than on that of the listener. Notable work on the listener's active role in conversation includes research done by Goffman (1981), Goodwin (1986) and Gardner (2001). Laughter research has shifted from an early interest in the causes of laughter to an interest in how it is organised and how it functions in conversational interaction. Despite many studies on listenership and laughter as distinct areas of research, there have been relatively few studies on how laughter contributes to listenership behaviour. In order to explore the relationship between listenership and laughter, I used a corpus of spoken interactional data. This data consists of conversations between Japanese participants (university students and teachers) who were asked to tell each other stories about a surprising moment that they had experienced. The corpus was constructed in such a way as to make it possible to compare (1) solidary (student-student) and non-solidary (student-teacher) interactions and (2) higher status story-teller (teacher telling student) and lower status story-teller (student telling teacher) interactions. Qualitative methods (drawing on a variety of techniques of discourse analysis) were used to discover laughter patterns and functions in relation to the role of the listener both at the micro-level and in relation to the macro-structure of the surprise story-telling. Quantitative methods were used to analyse the relationship between laughter patterns/functions and the above interaction types (solidary/non-solidary and lower status/higher status interactions). I found, firstly, at the micro-level of analysis, that the listener’s laughter contributed to the co-production of conversation through functions that included: responding/reacting, constituting and maintaining. There were two patterns of the listener’s laughter that were motivated by the speaker’s laughter invitation: acceptance, and declination. Acceptance involved the functions of responding/reacting or constituting, with the listener’s laughter functioning to support mutual understanding and bonding between the participants. Declination could be related to signal the listener’s lack of support for the speaker, however, the listener used the third option, the ambivalence. This shows that despite the absence of laughter, a verbal acknowledgement or understanding response was alternatively used. In a problematic situation, the listener’s laughter was found to reveal the listener’s third contribution: the maintaining function, helping to resolve an ongoing interactional problem. At the macro-level of analysis, based on the three phases in a surprise story, I found that laughter played a key role at phase boundaries (1st: preface/telling; 2nd: telling/response; and 3rd: response/next topic). The laughter patterns and functions appeared in each boundary. The acceptance pattern was more frequent than other patterns in all of the boundaries. The responding/reacting and constituting functions mainly appeared in the acceptance. The patterns of laughter in a trouble context were rare because they only appeared in a trouble context. The maintaining function in such a context also occasionally occurred in order to repair the trouble situation. Looking at laughter in relation to the different interaction types, I found, lastly, that the solidary dyads tended to demonstrate acceptance (constituting the responding/reacting and constituting functions), while the non-solidary dyads had a greater tendency to show declination. In addition, the lower-ranked listeners tended to show ambivalence, while the higher-ranked listeners tended to be more flexible in showing either acceptance or declination. These findings suggest the existence of a relationship between laughter patterns/functions and politeness: a higher degree of solidarity and a lower degree of status can influence the display of acceptance patterns/functions and listenership behaviour; a lower degree of solidarity and a higher degree of status can indicate flexibility when choosing a response type. In a trouble situation, laughter in its various patterns/functions was used in all interaction types to recover resolutions to any impediments in the ongoing engagement. All in all, I found that laughter contributes to listenership, both through supporting affiliation and through helping to resolve ‘trouble’ situations. I showed how listenership expressed through laughter plays a role in negotiating, creating, and maintaining the relationship between the self and the other in mutual interactions. As implications, I finally indicated that such laughter activities as the display of listenership could be closely connected to the Japanese communication style.

It has been acknowledged for some time that personal experience, relationship and emotional factors are important aspects of difficulties in learning to read and write; however there is still little research carried out in this area. This thesis explores the way in which eight adults make sense of their difficulties with reading and writing and identification of dyslexia; and their process of developing more positive self-perceptions and coping strategies. The study is guided by standpoint theory, with priority given to participants’ perceptions about difficulties in reading and writing rather than to academic and/or practitioner perspectives. Analysis of interviews is carried out through a life history methodology that identifies discourses of dyslexia in order to situate the way difficulties are understood and addressed. The discourses include four identified by Pollak (2005) and identification of six additional discourses of dyslexia that were present in both the literature review and at least half of the participant interviews. In the analysis, use of these discourses is mapped alongside the life story of each participant using the Model of Vocational Success (MVS) (Gerber et al. 1992) as a framework for classifying the development of positive self-perceptions and coping mechanisms. The participants’ life histories reveal that, without identification of dyslexia, difficulties with reading and writing are most often attributed by others such as teachers, peers and/or parents to low intelligence and/or lack of effort. Some participants rejected this understanding and others internalised it. Experience of ‘niche’ where the participant found themselves to be successful in a specific context best supported the development of positive self-perceptions and coping strategies before identification of dyslexia. Identification of dyslexia provided a means of making sense of difficulties, bolstered self-belief in intelligence, and initiated changes in support and personal motivation which, for the majority of participants, were notably beneficial. This PhD makes a number of unique contributions to knowledge about dyslexia, particularly through its prioritization of the voice of dyslexic people over professional voices. The identification of six additional discourses of dyslexia contributes to knowledge about the way difficulties with reading and writing can be understood and talked about, and exploration of how these discourses link to the MVS contributes knowledge about the advantages and disadvantages of these discourses to dyslexic people. The discourse ‘Hemispherist’ (Pollak 2005) was found to offer the most opportunity for dyslexic adults to develop positive self-perceptions and take constructive action to compensate for difficulties.

Within the framework of communicative accommodation theory, this study investigates the phonostylistic behaviour of French native speakers engaged in casual conversation. It examines some of the features speakers use to structure their discourse, particularly prosodic responses to the interlocutor and interaction management devices.  Part One gives an outline of previous research in the fields of conversation analysis, prosodic analysis and accommodation theory.  These insights are developed in Part Two into a framework that allows investigation of the following hypotheses: Accommodation and prosodic variation at topic change: this study examines the role of accommodation and prosodic variation as they occur at topic change in four case studies.  The management role of the pause at theme change will operate above the consensual/non-consensual categories, and hence variation in terms of melodic difference will be greater at such pauses.  By examining the thematic structure as it is reflected in prosodic behaviour around the pause by both speakers, the study demonstrates that at topic change there is a marked difference in the size of melodic gap in Hz around the pause. Accommodation and prosodic variation by length of pause:  It is contended that in consensual dialogue, the longer the duration of the empty pause which divides two consecutive turns, (1) the less the difference in intensity (dB) between the two speakers, and (2) the greater the difference in f0 between them, despite differences in their own vocal range. In non-consensual dialogue, it is contended that in instances where dispute or thematic refusal occurs (as witnessed through lexical indices), inversion of the two hypotheses above is possible. It was found that speakers can converge by matching each other’s pitch or by following a speech pattern whereby they both rise at small but regular intervals forming a smooth pattern in general pitch direction.