Using a corpus of school essays of Swedish students in year 9 and 12 of junior and senior high school, the present study compares the level of formality and frequency of discourse markers in the respective year groups. Based on previous literature, discourse markers found in the essays are categorized as either formal or informal. Ten randomly selected essays from each year group are analyzed. The results show that there are discrepancies between grade 9 and year 12 in both formality and frequency of discourse markers. The differences can be connected to second language acquisition and contexts in which the Swedish students acquire English. Outer input of English, made possible by new technology and globalization, has a significant impact on language acquisition, a phenomenon which is new and relatively unexplored.  The results of the current study are discussed in the light of the relevance and impacts of the frequent exposure to English through internet activities and media consumption and how it effects language learning. By focusing on discourse markers, which make up an important part of written and spoken language, I attempt to point out patterns that may be relevant and useful for English teachers. Awareness of how combined mechanisms effect and develop students´ acquisition and how to interpret differences in how students use specific grammatical elements such as discourse markers may be useful as a pedagogical analyzing tool. Not least when it comes to the assessment of essays.

Second language acquisition is a field that has fascinated linguists for numerous years and is a topic that is very much connected to how English teachers in Sweden try to teach the English language to the students in their classrooms. In 2009 Sundqvist examined what possible effects extramural English could have on learners' oral proficiency and their vocabulary. In her study she found out that extramural English “is an independent variable and a possible path to progress in English” (Sundqvist, 2009, p. i).  In 2014, three Swedish secondary- and upper secondary school teachers started a project for the Erasmus+. These three teachers tried to create better teaching conditions and to come up with new methods for teaching English. During their investigation they noticed that students who had only been in Sweden for four years or less, seemed to get less exposed to English in their spare time than native Swedish students, which created a disadvantage for them. Since the time when these two studies were carried out, the number of immigrants has increased drastically, which creates the need for further investigation within this area of second language acquisition. In this study, I therefore investigate how much and in what way students come in contact with the English language outside of school. I also examine if there are any differences between native Swedish students versus non-native Swedish students and if so, how this might affect the students and their grades in English. The study was conducted through the use of questionnaires and through observations of different teaching situations, including the participating teachers' methods and the participating students' reactions. The results show that there are differences between native- and non-native students when it comes to extramural English activities. The results also show that these differences seem to affect the students' grades in English, in favour of the native Swedish students. The native students tend to spend more time on extramural English activities, especially in connection to the Internet and computer games, than the non-native students. These results indicate that something needs to be done in order to compensate for the non-native students' disadvantage.

Limited information exists regarding the acquisition of syntax and morphology in young Spanish-English bilingual language learners. A method to measure short-term language learning is through structural priming; an auditory model of the target structure is presented, which influences a subject’s subsequent production. The purpose of this thesis was to develop and pilot priming tasks in both English and Spanish to analyze the language production of typically developing bilingual elementary school students. The morphosyntactic structures targeted in the structural priming task included the third person singular and past tense in English, as well as direct object clitics and imperfect tense in Spanish. The study included three participants, aged 4;7, 6;7, and 10;11. Results revealed that bilingual elementary students with varied language exposure are influenced and learn from morphosyntactic priming. / text

Submitted by Cristiane Chim (cristiane.chim@ucpel.edu.br) on 2016-07-29T18:09:32Z No. of bitstreams: 1 Dissertação LIANE RÉGIO LUCAS.pdf: 2305410 bytes, checksum: e252ad81da17321e7c4b6c534f76b5c7 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2016-07-29T18:09:32Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Dissertação LIANE RÉGIO LUCAS.pdf: 2305410 bytes, checksum: e252ad81da17321e7c4b6c534f76b5c7 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2014-12-18 / This study aims to investigate the perception that Portuguese speakers, from the southern region of Brazil, have from different meanings conveyed by the intonation, arising from different prominences, of English negative imperative sentences. Concerning the prosodic characterization, there is the analysis of Phonological (ıs) and Intonation (Is) Phrases based on the theoretical framework of Prosodic Phonology of Nespor and Vogel (1986); it is proposed the analysis of the organization of Phonological Phrases when constituting English imperative sentences as Intonational Phrases. As for the intonation characterization, it is proposed to analyze the Fundamental Frequency values (F0) of the negative imperative sentences under the Intonational Phonology theory, from Ladd (1996, 2008). The research methodology included the collection of a corpus consisted of perception data of English negative imperative sentences, obtained from 30 learners of English, between 18-30 years old, from Pelotas/RS and its region, and from three proficiency levels of English: Basic, Intermediate and Advanced. To certify the participants’ level, all of them took the Oxford Placement Test (Allan, 2004). Perception data were collected through a “judgment test”, in which stimulus were recorded by a native English speaker. The results were statistically analyzed in the SPSS software version 17.0, and the stimuli were subjected to acoustic analysis with the aid of the Praat software. The results showed great difficulty of English learners in identifying the meanings conveyed by negative imperative sentences, especially those of basic level, considering the prosodic level of the language, which was explained by the intonation of each type of sentence in accordance with the principles of Phonology Intonational as well as the organization of Phonological Phrases that make up the Intonation Phrase, in line with the precepts of Prosodic Theory. / A presente dissertação tem como objetivo investigar a percepção que falantes de língua portuguesa, da região do sul do Brasil, têm dos diferentes significados vinculados as entoações, decorrentes de proeminências diversas, das frases imperativas negativas do inglês. Na caracterização prosódica, tem-se a análise das Frases Fonológicas (ıs) e Entoacionais (Is), embasada no arcabouço teórico da Fonologia Prosódica, de Nespor e Vogel (1986); propõe-se a análise da organização das Frases Fonológicas na constituição das frases imperativas do inglês como Frases Entoacionais. Quanto à caracterização entoacional, propõe-se a análise dos valores de Frequência Fundamental (F0) das frases imperativas negativas, à luz da Fonologia Entoacional, de Ladd (1996, 2008). A metodologia da pesquisa contou com a coleta de um corpus constituído por dados de percepção das frases imperativas negativas do inglês, obtidos de 30 aprendizes de inglês, entre 18-30 anos, naturais de Pelotas/RS e região, de três níveis de proficiência em inglês: Básico, Intermediário e Avançado. Para a certificação do nível dos aprendizes, todos os participantes do estudo realizaram o Oxford Placement Test (ALLAN, 2004). Os dados de percepção foram coletados por meio de um teste classificado como “teste de julgamento”, com estímulos gravados por falante nativo de inglês. Os resultados foram analisados estatisticamente no software IBM SPSS versão 17.0, e os estímulos foram submetidos à uma análise acústica com o auxílio do software Praat. Os resultados apontaram grande dificuldade dos aprendizes de inglês na identificação dos significados veiculados por frases imperativas negativas, especialmente aqueles de nível elementar, ao considerar-se o nível prosódico da língua, o que foi explicado pelo contorno entoacional de cada tipo de frase, em conformidade com os preceitos da Fonologia Entoacional, bem como pela organização das Frases Fonológicas que compõem a Frase Entoacional, em consonância com os preceitos da Teoria Prosódica.