<p>The present dissertation investigated the impact of scales / scoring methods and prompt linguistic features on the meausrement quality of L2 English elicited imitation (EI). Scales / scoring methods are an important feature for the validity and reliabilty of L2 EI test, but less is known (Yan et al., 2016). Prompt linguistic features are also known to influence EI test quaity, particularly item difficulty, but item discrimination or corpus-based, fine-grained meausres have rarely been incorporated into examining the contribution of prompt linguistic features. The current study addressed the research needs, using item response theory (IRT) and random forest modeling.</p><p>Data consisted of 9,348 oral responses to forty-eight items, including EI prompts, item scores, and rater comments, which were collected from 779 examinees of an L2 English EI test at Purdue Universtiy. First, the study explored the current and alternative EI scales / scoring methods that measure grammatical / semantic accuracy, focusing on optimal IRT-based measurement qualities (RQ1 through RQ4 in Phase Ⅰ). Next, the project identified important prompt linguistic features that predict EI item difficulty and discrimination across different scales / scoring methods and proficiency, using multi-level modeling and random forest regression (RQ5 and RQ6 in Phase Ⅱ).</p><p>The main findings were (although not limited to): 1) collapsing exact repetition and paraphrase categories led to more optimal measurement (i.e., adequacy of item parameter values, category functioning, and model / item / person fit) (RQ1); there were fewer misfitting persons with lower proficiency and higher frequency of unexpected responses in the extreme categories (RQ2); the inconsistency of qualitatively distinguishing semantic errors and the wide range of grammatical accuracy in the minor error category contributed to misfit (RQ3); a quantity-based, 4-category ordinal scale outperformed quality-based or binary scales (RQ4); sentence length significantly explained item difficulty only, with small variance explained (RQ5); Corpus-based lexical measures and phrase-level syntactic complexity were important to predicting item difficulty, particularly for the higher ability level. The findings made implications for EI scale / item development in human and automatic scoring settings and L2 English proficiency development.</p>

While much research has shown that some linguistic features can indicate a person is lying, this line of research has led to conflicting results. Furthermore, very little research has been done to verify that these supposed linguistic features of deception are universal. In addition, few studies have researched the cross-cultural perceptions of deception, which knowledge could greatly improve the detection of deception across cultures. The current study addresses these gaps in the literature by analyzing and comparing truthful and deceptive discourse of eight native English-speaking Americans and eight non-native English-speaking Ghanaians. The discourse was elicited in one-on-one interviews where each interviewee spontaneously responded to questions about themselves. Later, interviewee responses were judged by 47 native English-speaking Americans and 35 non-native English-speaking Ghanaians. The results showed that Americans and Ghanaians lie differently—Americans' lies were more superfluous and redundant; had more pronoun inconsistencies, adjectives, adverbs, and modal verbs; and had fewer negative emotion words than their truths. Ghanaians' lies, on the other hand, also had more pronoun inconsistencies but had fewer negations than their truths. Furthermore, the groups' baseline speech differed in superfluousness, positive emotion words, word count, and response latency. Regarding detecting deception, Ghanaians were slightly more accurate and significantly more confident in detecting lies than Americans. Both groups were slightly more accurate and confident in judging the veracity of statements within their own cultures. Neither group, however, demonstrated truth- or lie-bias cross-culturally. These results have implications for law enforcement investigators and analysts who can learn the differences between Americans' and Ghanaians' truthful and deceptive speech so as to more accurately detect deception through language. In addition, cross-cultural deception perception research can improve cross-cultural communication and understanding.

This thesis investigates sociolinguistic variation among highly fluent Slovak-English bilingual women and also long-term immigrants residing in Edinburgh, Scotland. The present study adds to existing literature on urban migratory experiences (Block, 2008; Forsberg, Lundell and Bartning, 2015; Howley, 2015), comparing cross-cultural variation of immigrants' speech with their local peers (Drummond, 2010, 2012; Meyerhoff et al., 2009), by exploring linguistic and social constraints on language attitudes and accent acquisition among bilingual Slovak immigrants. Sociolinguistic interview data were obtained from 32 women, ages 22-46: 20 Slovak immigrants, 8 Edinburgh Scottish participants, and 6 bilingual Slovak teachers of English in Slovakia. By considering linguistic and social factors that influence Slovak immigrants' variation, in this thesis I ask not just whether and to what extent do local language communities shape immigrants' identity, but also how their identity affects their language attitudes and pronunciation. The thesis pays particular attention to how implicit and explicit language attitudes combine to establish what Block (2008) called a "multidimensional" identity in immigrants. Further investigation establishes a link between identity and production (Redinger and Llamas, 2014; Podesva et al., 2015) by drawing on the variationist sociolinguistic methodologies set out by Labov (1966, 2001, 2006). Implicit language attitudes were collected via a Verbal Guise Task (VGT), during which participants evaluated speakers of foreign and native English accents (Campbell- Kibler, 2006; McKenzie, 2015; McKenzie and Carrie, 2018). Explicit attitudes were collected via a questionnaire designed to elicit attitudes in a casual setting (Dörnyei and Csizér, 2012). The combination of methodologies revealed that immigrant participants in the study held complex attitudes and motivations in relation to their host country. The results for language attitudes suggested that long-term Slovak immigrants experienced shifts to their identity while residing in Scotland, with most adopting a transnational identity that made them amenable to local language communities while maintaining connections with their home country. Their identity represented a degree of integration with Scottish communities, but transnational immigrants often felt separate from both home and host countries as a result. The present study also explores connection between identity and production which is now well recognised (Kobiałka, 2016; Regan, 2016; Regan and Ni Chasaide, 2010; Bucholtz, 2011). Immigrant participants' pronunciations of FACE and GOAT vowel lexical sets (Wells, 1982) were evaluated in comparison to two language groups that represented different standards of pronunciation: native Scottish participants in Edinburgh, with more monophthongal pronunciations (Schützler, 2015); and English-Slovak bilinguals residing in Trnava, Slovakia, whose vowel productions were highly diphthongal and similar to Received Pronunciation (RP) constructions. Comparative study of pronunciations revealed that the immigrants' FACE and GOAT realisations were relatively more monophthongal than the non-immigrant Slovak group, yet more diphthongal than the native Scottish group - effectively making immigrant Slovaks' mean pronunciations separate and distinct from both native standard varieties. However, the immigrant's pronunciations varied widely, and data modelling revealed associations between key social factors and pronunciation. Settings of high formality, strong European and Slovak identities, and intentions to return to Slovakia were associated with relatively more diphthongal pronunciations. Decreased formality, strong Scottish identities, and lack of formal education before immigration were associated with relatively more monophthongal pronunciations. Key findings in the study reinforce observations of multi-cultural identities in longterm Slovak immigrants. Drawing on work that explores variation in language attitudes (Clark and Schleef, 2010) and production in migratory settings (Meyerhoff and Schleef, 2014), I argue that there is a tendency for immigrants to shape their multi-cultural identities in response to linguistic and social contexts. However, internal contexts such as self-definition were equally important in shaping identities, which in turn affected language attitudes and pronunciation.

The aim of the study was to investigate how four pupils in sixth grade use language when writing narrative texts, examined in relation to the typical structure and linguistic features of a narrative text. Another aim was to explore the similarities and differences between texts which received an A or B grade and texts with a D or E grade. The pupils’ texts are analysed from a systemic-functional perspective on language and on the basis of the typical structure and language of a narrative text, with the focus on expressions of time, processes, descriptions and nominal groups (cf. Johansson &amp; Sandell Ring 2012). The main finding is that the four pupils in their texts master the normal structure of a narrative text and that their texts have expressions of time, processes, descriptions and nominal groups, but they differ in extent and scope. The greatest differences between the narratives in the different grading categories are found in the introductions to the texts, the way of marking dialogue in the structure, and how the pupils use processes, circumstances and nominal groups to achieve descriptions. The text that received an E grade differs from the other texts that were graded as A, B and D, in that the writer has the shortest introduction to the text; the introductions to the other texts are relatively long. The E-graded text also differs from the other texts in the way it marks dialogue. That pupil uses quotation marks to indicate where dialogues occur, whereas the texts with A, B and D grades use a quotation dash to mark speech. All the pupils’ texts contain expressions of time. The texts also include several kinds of processes, except for the text that received a B grade, where there were no mental processes. The texts graded as A, B and D use expanded nominal groups and also various processes and circumstances to create descriptions. The text that received an E grade is the one that uses most expanded nominal groups for descriptive purposes.

This article deals with deviation in Euphrase Kezilahabi´s novel Gamba la Nyoka (1979). We analyse four different types of deviation, namely grammatical, lexical, phonological, and semantic deviation. The objective of this study is to combine linguistic analysis with literary riticism, in order to show how these different types of deviation correspond with the overall message the author conveys in this novel, which is a political novel dealing with the era of establishing Ujamaa policies in rural Tanzania.

The aim of this study is to investigate how five boys in grade 3 of compulsory school structure and use language when they write narrative texts retelling and assessing personally experienced events. This is studied by interpreting how the boys use genre steps that are typical of the structure of personal narrative texts and by detecting and naming different linguistic features in the texts. The material in the study consists of five boys’personal reports and the method, which is based on the theories of genre pedagogy (see Johansson &amp; Sandell Ring 2012:28ff, 223f), comes from systemic functional linguistics. A central finding of the study is that the boys structure their texts in varying combinations of genre steps which commonly occur in texts of a narrative kind. Another central finding is that the language in the boys’ texts consists of many verbs and verb groups which explain that someone is acting or doing something, different discourse connectives to indicate time, along with expressions for emotions and descriptions of experiences or objects.

This article deals with deviation in Euphrase Kezilahabi´s novel Gamba la Nyoka (1979). We analyse four different types of deviation, namely grammatical, lexical, phonological, and semantic deviation. The objective of this study is to combine linguistic analysis with literary riticism, in order to show how these different types of deviation correspond with the overall message the author conveys in this novel, which is a political novel dealing with the era of establishing Ujamaa policies in rural Tanzania.

This study investigates the growing integration of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in educational settings, specifically focusing on detecting AI-generated content in students’ English essays. As AI technologies like ChatGPT and Gemini become more prevalent, understanding their impact on education is crucial. This research aims to identify the linguistic features that lead English as a Foreign Language (EFL) teachers to suspect AI involvement in student work. By conducting semi-structured interviews with eight EFL teachers from lower upper secondary and high schools, the study examines their experiences and perspectives. Using the Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge (TPCK) framework, the study analyzes the crossing of technology, pedagogy, and content knowledge, highlighting the opportunities and challenges AI presents in contemporary education. The findings show the dual role of AI as both a beneficial tool for improving learning and a challenge to maintaining academic integrity. Despite the limitations, such as the evolving nature of AI, the research highlights the need for teachers to balance the benefits of AI with preserving authentic student work. Future research directions include exploring more effective AI detection methods and understanding the long-term impact of AI on students’ critical thinking skills.

South African indigenous language teaching and learning materials do not provide sufficient information to help additional language learners learn the target languages effectively. While there are institutions that are tasked with developing and sharpening the skills of students in speaking South African indigenous languages, such students hardly, if at all master the art of speaking them eloquently. Students who study these languages in order to converse proficiently with their mother-tongue speakers experience insurmountable difficulties, in spite of various efforts made by the teachers who train them to read books on their own. Passing their examinations does not mean that the students’ ability to communicate with mother-tongue speakers will improve to the extent of eliminating the prevailing misunderstanding between the two groups. The persistence of this problem reveals a discrepancy between the studies of indigenous languages in South Africa and the way of speaking them, whereby important linguistic elements that make communication more authentic are excluded in language materials. This study analyses the use and significance of CIFWs in daily interactions by investigating the two Xhosa CIFWs words wethu and bethu. The overall aim of this study is to explore the use of a corpus in the examination of CIFWs in general, and wethu and bethu in particular. Both a quantitative approach based on the Gothenburg-Unisa spoken corpus and a qualitative approach based on Allwoods’ ACA theoretical framework were used in the analysis and description of the functions and significances of wethu and bethu as communicative and interactive function words. / Linguistics / MA ((Applied Linguistics)

國 立 政 治 大 學 研 究 所 碩 士 論 文 提 要 研究所別: 語言學研究所 論文名稱: 中文對話中的異議現象 指導教授: 李櫻 博士 研究生: 林智怡 論文提要內容: 共壹冊，分伍章 在日常對話中，我們觀察到衝突對話是避免出現的，而大致上人們較傾向給予同意，而不傾向行使異議對話。既然在中國社會裡，面子和禮貌是相當受重視的，因此在中文對話中避免行使異議對話尤其重要。雖然在很多情境下，禮貌意味著盡量給予同意而避免異議，但顯然人們並不總是在同意他人。如果一個人不同意他的談話對象所表達的意見，他可以用一些禮貌的方式來避免威脅到對方的顏面。本篇研究的重點就是在調查當說話者要行使異議時，他們對不同的語用策略(pragmatic strategies)及語言特徵(linguistic features)的運用，並將探討說話者對談話原則中的合作原則(CP)及禮貌原則(PP)的遵守或違反。在調查的過程中，性別差異也將列入考慮。 在這篇研究當中，我們收集了九筆日常面對面對話互動的語料：三筆男對男的對話，三筆女對女的對話，三筆男與女的對話。每筆語料都是錄音自兩位熟朋友間大約四十五分鐘的對話。在語料分析的過程中，我們同時採用質性與量化的探討來調查並解釋中文對話中的異議現象。 研究結果顯示在異議時所呈現的語用策略及語言特徵似乎互相矛盾。人們傾向使用較具侵略性及競爭性的糾正策略(correction)來行使他們的異議，反而傾向用較宛轉的語言特徵來表示異議。然而，這並不是一個真正的矛盾，相反的，它可能顯示出年輕的族群不只在乎禮貌的和諧關係，同時也用較直接的語用策略來表示他們之間的一致性(solidarity)。除了用較宛轉的語言特徵來緩和行使異議時所用的較直接的語用策略外，人們在行使異議時也違反一些合作原則來實行禮貌原則或其他對話原則。不論人們如何行使異議，表面上禮貌或不禮貌，違反合作原則來遵守其他的談話原則的最終目的都是得體合宜及禮貌。 至於異議表現的性別差異，雖然一般的印象中是男性的互動比女性較具競爭性、侵略性及好辯，然而我們這裡的研究並不完全和這樣的模式吻合。女性現在較主動表達她們的意見，然而她們自由表達她們的想法只侷限在同樣是女性面前。換句話說，雖然現在的女性比傳統女性受較好的教育，男性也已意識到表現騎士風範及尊重女性的重要性，然而男女之間的權力(power)差異，似乎仍在現代社會中有著影響力。 / Abstract In daily conversation, it can be observed that conflict talk is avoided and agreement is generally preferred over disagreement. Avoidance of disagreement plays an especially important role in Mandarin Chinese conversation, since face and politeness are valued high in Chinese society. Although in many contexts being polite means maximizing areas of agreement and minimizing disagreement, clearly people do not always agree; and if one does not agree with the views expressed by a conversational partner, there are polite options available for him to avoid any possible threat on the interlocutor’s face. The focus of this study is to investigate the speakers’ use of different pragmatic strategies and linguistic features when disagreement arises, and will also discuss the speakers’ observation or violation of the conversational principles of CP and PP. In the process of our investigation, gender difference will be taken into consideration. In this study, we collect 9 dyadic face to face daily conversations: three male-to-male conversations, three female-to-female conversations, and three mixed-gender conversations. Each conversation is given by two close friends and tape-recorded around forty-five minutes. In the process of data analysis, qualitative as well as quantitative analysis will both be adopted to investigate and explain the phenomenon of disagreement in Mandarin Chinese conversation. The results of this study indicate that the performance of the pragmatic strategies and the linguistic features in disagreement seems to be a contradiction. People tend to choose the aggressive and competitive strategy of correction to perform their disagreement, while they tend to choose mitigating features when performing their disagreement. However, this may not be a real contradiction. Instead, it may show that the young group’s concern is not only the harmonious relationships observed in politeness, but also the solidarity signaled by using direct pragmatic strategies. Besides using the mitigating linguistic features to tone down the direct pragmatic strategies in the performance of disagreement, people also violate some CP maxims to uphold the PP and other conversation principles when performing their disagreement. No matter how the disagreement is performed, superficially polite or impolite, the major concern and ultimate achievement of the CP violation for the sake of observation of other linguistic maxims is appropriateness and politeness. As for the gender differences in the performance of disagreement, though the overall impression is that male interaction is typically more competitive, aggressive and argumentative than female, our study here does not completely match with the general pattern. Females are now more active in expressing their opinions; however, they freely express their thought only in front of their own sex. In other words, the power difference between males and females still has its influence in this modern society though now females are better-educated than the traditional women and males have already known the importance of showing chivalry and respect to females.