Although it is known that the Spanish current Educative System promotes using the Communicate Approach to teach foreign languages in schools, other recently designed approaches are also used to help students improve their skills when communicating in a foreign language. One of these approaches is Content and Language Integrated Learning, also known as CLIL, which is used to teach content courses using the English language as the language of instruction. This approach improves the students’ skills in English as the same time as they learn content from other areas. The goal of this thesis is to present a research project carried out at the University of Alicante during the academic year 2011-2012. With this research we obtained results that provide quantitative and qualitative data which explains how the use of the CLIL methodology affects the English level of students in the “Didactics of the English Language in Preschool Education” course in Preschool Education Teacher Undergraduate Program as students acquire the contents of the course.

Complaining happens in all cultures, and offers a unique insight into the values, taboos, and communicative practices of a given society. The ways in which complaining is viewed and performed vary drastically not only cross-culturally, but across smaller communal groups and between individuals, too. This dissertation approaches complaining from a multilateral perspective to investigate how individuals in three different language groups – monolingual French speakers, monolingual English speakers, and native English speakers enrolled in upper-division university French courses – perceive and produce complaints as well as the influential role played by social context. In the perception study, the researcher explores how individuals within the examined language groups identify the presence of complaints and perceive their naturalness when presented with contextualized scenarios involving native speakers. In the production study, the researcher examines both the frequency with which individuals complain and the strategies they employ to perform a complaint in various social situations. Additionally, within the production study the researcher examines the frequency with which participants opt out from complaining and their provided rationale for doing so. This dissertation not only identifies a variety of universal linguistic and sociocultural features of complaints, it also uncovers several aspects distinctive to the individual language groups. At the core of this dissertation is the argument that to best understand complaint behavior, researchers should acknowledge the essential influence of social context on both the perception and production of complaints. Above all, future research must consider the complex and dynamic interplay that exists between cross-cultural complaint behaviors and social norms of politeness.

This dissertation investigates second language (L2) development in the domains of morphosyntax and semantics. Specifically, it examines the acquisition of definiteness and specificity in Russian within the Feature Re-assembly framework (Lardiere, 2009), according to which the hardest L2 learning task is not to reset parameters but to reconfigure, or remap features from the way they are assembled in the L1 into new formal configurations in the L2. Within the Feature Re-assembly approach, it has been argued that re-assembling features that are represented overtly in the L1 and mapping them onto those that are encoded covertly by context in the L2 will present a greater difficulty than re-assembling features in the opposite direction (Slabakova, 2009). This dissertation examines the acquisition of four linguistic properties (types of modifiers, word order, indefinite determiners and case marking) that encode definiteness and specificity overtly or covertly in L2 Russian by English and Korean speakers. The native languages of the learners were chosen specifically in order to test various overt-covert mappings. The data obtained from two experimental tasks (grammaticality and felicity judgments) completed by 56 Russian native speaker controls, 51 English- and 53 Korean-speaking learners support Slabakova's prediction that overt-to-covert realization of the feature is more challenging than covert-to-overt realization. In addition, the findings uncovered other important factors facilitating or impeding acquisition, such as the nature of the form-to-meaning mapping (one-to-one or one-to-many) and the availability of clear, unambiguous evidence for a certain mapping in the input available to learners. Results also reveal that the presence or absence of the L1 transfer depends on the overt/covert status of the feature in the L2. That is, when the feature is marked overtly in both the L1 and L2, L1 transfer has facilitative effect on the acquisition of the feature. On the contrary, when the feature is marked covertly in both the L1 and L2, L1 transfer has no or negative effects. These findings provide new insights into the effects of the native language on L2 learnability and enable us to come to a more precise and fine-grained understanding of grammatical meaning acquisition in the second language.

This dissertation consists of two studies, which respectively investigate L2 Chinese learners' acquisition of simple wh-questions of different grammatical functions longitudinally over their first-year learning and their acquisition of indirect questions and wh-questions in complements at the end of their first year. The participants consisted of 21 first-year English-speaking learners of Chinese. Both grammaticality judgment (GJ) and oral production (OP) tests were used. Study 1 reports that only attributive wh-questions posed more difficulty to the participants than object wh-questions in OP test at the beginning stage, and adverbial wh-questions and object wh-questions were not found to be significantly different to the participants as reported in some L1 and L2 studies. This author attributed this to the different syntactic mechanism that L2 learners of movement language and learners of in-situ language go through. The initial stage of participants' grammar did not display a clear presence of [+wh] feature strength, and the development of the [-wh] feature strength in learners' L2 grammar was not linear, but U-shaped. Study 2 reveals that learners' performance on indirect questions and wh-questions in object complements was not as good as their performance on simple wh-questions at the end of first year learning. For indirect questions, the initial stage of participants' L2 grammar showed an obvious L1 influence, the embedded [+wh]. For wh-questions in complements, it did not show an L1 influence, the matrix [+wh], but an embedded [+wh], which is non-target like but resembles wide-scope wh-questions with an embedded [+wh] in Malay and Madurese. Learners' performance on simple wh-questions patterned together with that in matrix clauses of wh-questions in complements, which was better than their performance on embedded clauses of the two types of complex wh-questions. Evidence for connection between their performance on simple wh-questions and matrix clauses of wh-questions in complements regarding the grammatical feature that wh-words are not allowed in clause initial position was revealed, but there was no strong evidence for connection between their performance on embedded clauses of the two types of complex wh-questions. It suggests that learners might be using different strategies for acquisition of structures of different natures.

The present body of research examined adult bilinguals who acquired a second language (L2) from an early age and who subsequently developed language dominance in that language. The question investigated is whether such "early L2-dominant bilinguals" attain a native level of proficiency in their second language. This possibility was explored by comparing bilinguals who had Cantonese L1 (logographic, morphosyllabic), Vietnamese L1 (alphabetic, morphosyllabic) or some "Other" L1 (alphabetic, non-morphosyllabic) to English monolinguals on various tasks in English (L2). The ability to process spoken stimuli was examined using phoneme deletion, spelling-to-dictation, and auditory comprehension tasks. The results showed that bilinguals from all backgrounds had greater difficulty than monolinguals on tasks that required sublexical skills, with the morphosyllabic groups performing the most poorly. The processing of print was investigated using reading aloud and reading comprehension tasks. In contrast to the auditory tasks, only Cantonese L1 bilinguals displayed any discernable difference from monolinguals on reading. Cantonese L1 bilinguals did, however, outperform monolinguals on orthographic memory tasks, such as the spelling of idiosyncratic L2 words. The findings therefore indicated that L1 linguistic structure influences L2 processing in adulthood, despite the former having become subordinate. In order to elucidate whether transfer effects arise solely from early exposure to L1, or whether L1 maintenance also plays a role, the L1 and L2 proficiency of a separate sample of Cantonese L1 bilinguals was examined. However, no meaningful relationship between L1 and L2 proficiency was found. Finally, a sample of late bilinguals were also tested in order to determine whether the L1-specific effects observed in early bilinguals are simply an attenuated version of those in late bilinguals,. The results revealed that the development of language dominance in L2 does lead to qualitatively different outcomes in L2 for early bilinguals. The findings from the present research are most consistent with the Competition Model (e.g., Hernandez, Li, & MacWhinney, 2005), which espouses the notions of L1 transfer and entrenchment to explain second language acquisition. Overall, the research indicates that native attainment in L2 is not assured for all early L2-dominant bilinguals.

Nous étudions les espaces de formes harmoniques $L^2$ essentiellement sur les variétés de volume fini, à courbure négative et pincée. Notre but est d'en trouver une interprétation topologique. Nous montrons, dans un premier temps, que si la courbure est suffisamment pincée, il y a une telle interprétation simple de ces espaces. Nous construisons également des exemples qui montrent que notre hypothèse de pincement de la courbure est nécessaire et optimale. Dans un deuxième temps, nous considérons des variétés qui sont de plus kaehlériennes, et nous montrons, sans hypothèse sur le pincement, qu'on peut donner une interprétation topologique de l'espace des k-formes harmoniques $L^2$, pour certains entiers k. Enfin, nous étudions plus généralement la $L^p$-cohomologie de nos variétés.

<p>Syftet med denna studie var att undersöka hur väl tvåspråkiga elever i årskurs 9 behärskade vanligt förekommande idiomatiska uttryck i skrivet språk. Tre faktorer som enligt tidigare studier visat sig påverka idiomförståelse är; semantisk transparens, om uttrycket står i en kontext samt tidigare kännedom om uttrycket. Läsförmågan kontrollerades med ett standardiserat avkodnings- och läsförståelsetest, och idiomförståelsen testades utifrån ett test med 45, främst transparenta frekventa idiomatiska uttryck, isolerade respektive i en kontext. Resultaten visade att typ av tvåspråkighet och nivå på läskunnighet påverkade idiomförståelsen. De successivt tvåspråkiga med svenska som andraspråk klarade inte av att använda kontexten vid tolkningen i lika hög grad som de simultant tvåspråkiga och successivt tvåspråkiga med svenska som förstaspråk. Däremot presterade båda grupperna bäst vid tolkningen av idiomatiska uttryck som de hade kännedom om sedan tidigare. Enligt utvecklingsmodellen, global elaboration model (GEM) börjar utvecklingsprocessen för figurativ kompetens i 8 årsåldern hos enspråkiga barn. Enligt resultaten i denna studie kunde successivt tvåspråkiga med svenska som andraspråk i årskurs 9 jämföras med enspråkiga barn i 7-8 årsåldern, medan gruppen med simultant tvåspråkiga och successivt tvåspråkiga med svenska som förstaspråk, kunde jämföras med enspråkiga barn mellan 9-12 år.</p>

<p>El objetivo de este estudio es analizar las estrategias discursivas utilizadas por hablantes avanzados de español en comparación con hablantes nativos. El solo hecho de tener que narrar una historia de manera improvisada en una segunda lengua, manteniendo en todo momento una relación coherente, nos puede llevar a la necesidad de utilizar ciertas estrategias discursivas para encontrar la palabra adecuada en cada situación.</p><p>Para llevar a cabo este estudio se analizaron transcripciones de relatos hechos por un grupo de estudio conformado por hablantes no nativos de español y un grupo de control compuesto por hablantes nativos. Los relatos se inspiran en un libro de imágenes sin texto, en donde cada uno de los informantes narró la historia improvisadamente. De esta manera se comparó el uso de las estrategias utilizadas por ambos grupos llegando a obtener resultados con ciertas similitudes y diferencias entre ambos grupos.</p>

<p>El presente estudio versa sobre el análisis de errores de un grupo de suecos aprendientes de español como segunda lengua. El análisis trata de explorar si el tiempo de estadía en el país de la lengua meta, juega un papel significativo en la frecuencia de errores lingüísticos. Para este efecto, se analizaron las transcripciones de un ejercicio narrativo hecho por los aprendientes, para luego determinar los errores gramaticales y léxicos más frecuentes. Además de los aprendientes también se constó de un grupo de nativos monolingües de español quienes también hicieron el mismo ejercicio narrativo. El método de análisis en este trabajo es de tipo cuantitativo y como herramienta de análisis se utilizaron el t-test y el test correlacional Pearson. El t-test ayuda a determinar si la diferencia entre los dos grupos es suficientemente grande y significativa. El test correlacional Pearson ayuda a determinar la correlación entre el total de errores y el tiempo de estadía.</p><p>Las preguntas de investigación responden a dos preguntas: las diferencias entre nativos y aprendientes en lo que se refiere a los errores lingüísticos que comente y el papel que desempeña el tiempo de estadía en la frecuencia de errores cometidos. Seguido a estas preguntas se plantean dos hipótesis: los aprendientes cometen más errores que los nativos, y el tiempo de estadía juega un papel importante en este comportamiento en el sentido de que mientras más tiempo se lleva en el ámbito L2 menos errores lingüísticos se deben cometer.</p><p>Los resultados del análisis indican que el tiempo de estadía no presenta mayor efecto en la frecuencia de errores que los aprendientes cometen.</p>

<p>The aim of the study was to find out whether or not there is a difference in the type and number of errors made by L2 intermediate learners and beginners of English. Texts were gathered from two age groups, 9-10 year olds and 16-18 year olds, 16 texts from the younger beginner level learners and 9 from the older intermediate learners. From the errors made in the texts five categories were formed (six for the beginners): Grammatical errors, word missing errors, morpheme errors, word order errors and spelling errors that is unique to the beginners. It was found that intermediate learners make fewer errors overall but that they make the same types of errors as the beginners when they do make an error.</p>