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Computer-mediated communication (CMC) is a relatively new field made even more difficult to investigate by the continuous progress and changes of the digital world. There is a multitude of research on CMC from a linguistic perspective; however, the vastness of the online world makes it difficult to determine to what extent it is a welcoming or hostile environment. The existing studies of polite and impolite language use in CMC provide some insight into the type of environment found online though there is a notable lack of information regarding the overall proportionality of impolite language use, specifically violent and aggressive language use. This study aims to explore to what extent violent and aggressive language use is present in user generated comments found on the social media platform YouTube by investigating the semantic fields of violence and aggression. It is a corpus-based study of the topmost comments collected from the most popular videos in the year 2023 in the YouTube category of Reviews. The quantitative content analysis reveals that both violent and aggressive language use is present in the comments though infrequently with violent language use having a normalized frequency of 2.1 times per thousand words and aggressive language use 2.6 times per thousand words. The qualitative pragmatic analysis of the observed instances shows that only one instance carries out the illocutionary act of violence in addition to the locutionary act. Based on these findings it appears violent and aggressive language use is relatively infrequent concerning more neutral topics and in most cases the communicators do not have violent or aggressive intent in their messages.

This study investigated the relationship of out-of-class English use and proficiency gains. It also explored the relationship of gender, proficiency level and native language and the possible effect of these demographics on out-of-class English use and language gains in English. Though some studies have shown that those who spend more out-of-class time using the target language have higher language gain (Seliger, 1977), other studies have not found this to be true (Day, 1985; Freed 1990; Spada, 1986). Some reasons for the discrepancy in findings may be differences in the length of the time data is collected, samples of study participants and types of tests used to measure proficiency. Sixty-one students at an intensive English language program came from 12 different language backgrounds and 4 proficiency levels. They participated in a 31-week-long study. Participants took a proficiency pre- and posttest (Elicited Imitation Test) and responded to a questionnaire designed to elicit information about out-of-class language use (Language Contact Profile). In addition to the questionnaire, six students participated in semi-structured interviews that offered additional support for the data gathered by the questionnaire. Data obtained from the questionnaire and interviews was compared to gains in proficiency between the pre- and posttest. The results suggest that using English out-of-class helps improve oral proficiency. In addition, the study shows that gender, proficiency level and native language are not significant predictors of out-of-class English use and proficiency gains. These findings are discussed in light of what teachers and school administrators can do to help their students use the target language in and out of class for best results.

The development of education through the medium of Celtic languages (here specifically Welsh and Scottish Gaelic) is often placed within a language planning framework in which Celtic-medium education is viewed as a means of sustaining a threatened language in the context of levels of intergenerational transmission which are insufficient to maintain speaker numbers. The primary to secondary school stage is a critical juncture from such a perspective, as language revitalization requires the language competencies, patterns of Celtic language use and positive attitudes towards the Celtic language fostered at the primary school stage to be maintained and developed at the secondary school stage. However, the secondary school stage has often been associated with a reduction in the uptake and availability of Celticmedium education and with a decline both in Celtic language use and in positive attitudes towards the language. Such a policy and research context raises two sets of research questions, the first relating to choice of medium of instruction of education, and the second to aspects of pupil language relevant to language planning and maintenance: (1)Research Questions: Choice What factors influence parental decisions for Celtic-medium education at the primary school level? What factors influence Celtic-medium pupil decisions regarding language of education for the first year of secondary school? Do the responses and patterns of response regarding choice differ between (i) the primary and secondary school stages and/or (ii) the Scottish and Welsh contexts? (2)Research Questions: Language Planning What are Celtic-medium pupils’ patterns of (a) language use (b) perceptions of their linguistic ability (c) identification with the Celtic language and (d) perceptions of the usefulness of the Celtic language for their future at the primary and early secondary school stages? Do the responses and patterns of response differ between the Scottish and Welsh contexts at the primary school stage? Do the responses and patterns of response shift between the primary and secondary school stages in either the Scottish or the Welsh contexts? This thesis presents the results of a longitudinal study of 28 Gaelic-medium and 57 Welsh-medium final year primary and first year secondary pupils, their parents and teachers, conducted in 2007-2008. English-medium pupils from dual stream schools were also incorporated, primarily as a control group for the experiences of their Celtic-medium counterparts (17 English-medium Scotland and 34 English-medium Wales pupils, their parents and teachers). The research questions are investigated using multiple research methods in a longitudinal design. Pupils took part in semi-structured interviews in the final year of primary school and in the first year of secondary school concerning their experience of learning a Celtic language, the reasons for their decisions regarding the medium of instruction of secondary school subjects, their identification with their Celtic language and their perceptions of its usefulness. At each of these two school stages, pupils also completed standardized questionnaires (which yielded statistical data) on their language use and their perceived language competence in their Celtic language and in English. The pupil interviews were supplemented by interviews with their teachers at primary and secondary school, and with their parents at the primary school stage; thus a total of 383 interviews were conducted. Comparison was made not only longitudinally but also between the Gaelic and Welsh groups and, where relevant, between each of them and their English-medium counterparts. The results are discussed in relation to contextual factors (for example national and local authority policies, the linguistic demographics of Scotland and Wales and the level of Celtic-language institutionalization in the two countries), in relation to previous research on choice, language use, language ability and language attitudes in the Scottish and Welsh contexts, and in relation to theories of language maintenance.

The recent collapse of the Dublin system, a system meant to distribute responsibility towards asylum-seekers and refugees between EU Member States (MSs), has marked a new phase of the so-called European Refugee “Crisis”, where the inability of EU MS governments to address the situation in a unified and coherent manner ultimately harms those most in need of protection. Public discontent with EU and MS government responses to the crisis has led to strong citizen mobilisation in the form of civil society. This study focuses on the case of the UK and examines the role played by policy advocacy Civil Society Organisations (CSOs). The concept of Political Responsibility is used to establish the emergence of a Governance Gap in the UK's response to the crisis, where the government finds itself unable to bridge a growing distance between its representation and responsible governance functions. Policy advocacy CSOs are found to be now minding this gap. Critical Discourse Analysis is used to study how CSOs react to the UK government's response in terms of practice and discourse, and to highlight the consequences which language use can have on how we perceive and treat refugees and asylum-seekers in this context.

My dissertation examines the correlations between the natural and supernatural, agency and authority, and meaning and language in the work of the modernist American writers H.D. (Hilda Doolittle) and Djuna Barnes. Using the psychoanalytic theory of Jacques Lacan, Melanie Klein, and Nicholas Abraham and Maria Torok, I argue that the different kinds of spectral and otherworldly figures that appear in these works – ghosts, the living dead, divinities, individuals who are also amorphous multiplicities – correlate to the modes of negation of parental imperatives that structure the language-use of their authors. I contrast H.D.‘s and Barnes‘s visions of the relation of language to meaning and the personal to the social using Lacan‘s delineation of the different modes of psychic negation that enable or disable language use: repression, disavowal, and foreclosure. According to this model, H.D.‘s work evidences foreclosure: a mode of thought and language that fails to differentiate words, thoughts, and people from one another. This incapacity endangers the psyche with the hallucinatory return of or haunting by what cannot be symbolized. In contrast, Barnes‘s work suggests disavowal, and her language renders experience in distorted forms. She repudiates power figures and the unspeakable meanings associated with them, but her work portrays the spectral, surreptitious return of these figures and meanings. Writing that witnesses or stages a return to a state of non-difference between symbol and symbolized, as Barnes‘s and H.D.‘s work does, calls for different interpretative and methodological strategies than those usual in literary criticism. To read such work primarily as symbolic communication is to lose perspective on the structures of thought and language that it grapples with. A perspective that is rigorous and radically different from the works‘ own is necessary to produce readings of it that make symbolic ―sense,‖ though it is unable to fully account for experiences that are not conceivable. To this end, I describe ―disorders,‖ types of thought and language that psychoanalysis implicates in interminable human suffering, without drawing conclusions about the range of experiences that might be concurrent with asymbolic or anti-symbolic thought and writing. / Graduate / 2019-08-31 / 0298 / 0591

A fundamental question in language research is the extent to which linguistic and cognitive systems interact. The aim of this thesis is to explore that relationship across new contexts and over the entire adult lifespan. This work centers on two branches of empirical research: the first is an investigation into the impact of later-life language learning on cognitive ageing (chapters 2-4), and the second examines the cognitive mechanisms underlying communicative perspective-taking from young adulthood into old age (chapter 5). The results of these chapters demonstrate that changes to one's linguistic environment can affect cognitive functions at any age, and similarly age-related changes to cognition can affect linguistic abilities, shedding light on the extent to which language and the brain are intricately connected over the lifespan. In the discussion (chapter 6), I consider how this work contributes new insights to the field, opening the door for future research to explore methods of improving cognitive abilities and linguistic behavior in old age.

<p>This thesis investigates the use of word order variation, in particular the variable use of subject-verb inversion and non-inversion in main declarative clauses, among adolescents in contemporary multilingual settings in Sweden. The use of non-inversion in contexts that in standard Swedish require inversion is sometimes claimed to be characteristic of varieties of Swedish spoken among adolescents in multilingual urban areas. The present study includes a wide range of data, both spontaneous and elicited, and explores how common the use of non-inversion is among a relatively large group of participants in different contexts, and how the use of non-inversion is influenced by different demographic, linguistic and socio-pragmatic factors.</p><p>The results show that non-inversions are used to a limited extent in all types of data in the studied population. Only certain individuals frequently employ non-inversions in some contexts. Further, no direct link is found between second language acquisition and the use of non-inversion in this study. Factors related to the issue of nativeness, for example participants’ reported age of onset of Swedish acquisition, only marginally explain the results. In general, examples of non-inversion are employed more extensively, and by more participants, in peer-peer interaction than with adults. The use of non-inversion appears to be part of some adolescents’ spontaneous language use in certain contexts. More importantly, however, the results suggest that some adolescents employ non-inversions as an active linguistic resource to express their identification with the multilingual environment and the different varieties of Swedish spoken there, to show solidarity with peers, to contest official school discourses, and to play around with linguistic stereotypes.</p>

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