In order to determine how learner background and learner attitudes affected English as a Second Language students verb production, eleven ESL learners participated in both oral and written tasks. They were given written surveys to determine what was emphasized more in learning English in their home countries: speaking or writing. Another survey was administered to determine which of these activities that they liked best. Next, the subjects watched a movie clip, wrote about it, and then spoke about it. Their written and spoken total amount of verbs produced and total amount of verbs used correctly were compared and analyzed to see if there was a relationship between their learning background and production in speaking and writing and activity preference and production in speaking and writing. While the sample size was too small to obtain reliable correlations, so several subjects samples were studied in order to determine the effects of preference on production. In the end, individual differences played the largest role in verb production and there was a slight but noticeable relationship between a preference for speaking and amount of verbs produced.

The aim of this study is to analyze and interpretate the refusal speech acts of two generations of Korean women: mothers-in-law and daughters-in-law. To be specific, it examines if daughters-in-laws use of strategies were dependent on the age difference/ hierarchies and to see if there was any difference in the type of strategies used by daughters-in-law depending on whether mothers-in-law have social power or not. The data were collected from three soap operas. Compared with previous data collection methods, such as discourse completion tests or role-plays, this data collection method has advantages for a pragmatics study. The results indicated that age is a critical factor in choosing polite refusals in Korean language, but social distances far outweigh age differences among family members. Korean daughters-in-law usually followed indirect or implicit strategies to turn down their mothers-in-laws request or suggestion. The mostly common strategy used by Korean women, both mothers-in-law and daughters-in-law, was circumlocution with excuses, explanations, or reasons. Findings indicated that yo-form and honorific suffix are typically used when daughters-in-law are refusing to their mothers-in-law. To see whether the daughter-in-law varies her refusals as a function of the partner being the mother-in-law, this study also compared interactions between the daughter and her mother-in-law and the daughter with her mother in the dramas. Daughters tend to shift downwards, from polite speech level to intimate or plain speech level, but rarely upwards in their interaction with their mothers. Finally, in daughter-in-laws refusals, whether or not mothers-in-law have social power does not seem to have a strong effect on the daughters-in-laws polite linguistic behavior, and vice versa. Findings revealed that various contextual factors play a role in the selection of the polite form chosen and actual utterance is not always consistent with gender stereotypes.

Comics (plural in form but used with a singular verb as defined by Scott McCloud, Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art, HarperPerennial) provides a fresh perspective on the interaction of culture and language and spans from simple one-frame comics to graphic novels. Speech in comics is fully interpretable only in relation to the other elements; therefore a transcription system that includes them all is necessary. I have developed a unique transcription method which incorporates all the salient aspects of comic art revealing the linguistic codes embedded within. I show that transcription techniques, while primarily focused on speech, can also be applied to other forms of communication. Gestures and their corresponding ingesticulary acts are communicative and therefore crucial to our understanding of language and culture interaction within comic art. Charles Schultzs Peanuts is a relatively simple form of comics which makes it easier to focus on the linguistic information within the comic strip. Establishing the communicative information necessary to decode this relatively stripped-down comic strip will provide the framework necessary for all other forms of comics. In order to transcribe any form of comic art, one must include six keys elements: 1) the Prose, 2) the Gesture, 3) the Ingesticulary Act, 4) the Action, 5) the Perspective, 6) and the Environment. The interaction of these six elements creates the scaffold which supports the communicative mechanisms used in comic arts. My work yields a new understanding of the importance of language and culture interaction expanding the definition of communication to include written and visual elements of comics. Using my innovative transcription technique allows for further systematic decoding of linguistic elements within all kinds of comics and visual art.

The purpose of the study is to examine Korean parents attitudes, motivations, and home literacy practices toward their childrens participation in bilingualism in Korean and English in Korea. The success of foreign language learning is influenced by positive attitudes and the level of motivation regarding the target language. Language learners attitudes and motivations toward a target language are closely related to their development of language proficiency, and children are often strongly influenced by their parents. The present study was conducted by the survey that was comprised of four-part Likert-type statements. The participants consisted of parents who have children enrolled in the elementary school located in the center of Korea. Parents of 218 responded to the survey questionnaires on December 2011. For the research questions, a two-way analysis of variance was applied based on the parents demographic information, and a multiple regression in the methods was used to examine the correlations among attitudes, motivations, and home literacy practices. The results of this research indicate that most participants had highly favorable attitudes toward bilingualism based on the scores according to both holistic view and fragmented view. Although there was slightly a difference between the two views, the parents attitudes toward the holistic view of bilingualism were more favorable than those toward the fragmented view. Also, the parents showed favorable responses to all five motivations toward bilingualism. While the scores for the integrative motivation were the highest, on the other hand, those for the attributions about past failure were the lowest. In terms of home literacy practices, the parents responses were positive for all the practices. The formal practices were the preferred activity for childrens bilingualism, whereas the favorableness to CALL practices was the lowest. Attitudes and motivations can influence each other without a hierarchy. The parents attitudes, motivations, and home literacy practices toward bilingualism were measured based on the demographic information such as gender, age, socio-economic status, etc, resulting in a variety of significant findings. Also, attitudes and motivations allow us to predict the favorableness of home literacy practices. The present study proposes some recommendations to policy makers and concludes with several suggestions for further research.

ABSTRACT Between 1969 and 2011, Libya experienced an oppressive dictatorship that paralyzed the country`s political, economical, and social growth. Libya`s literary identity was oppressed due to the policy of censorship and authors were unable to express their opinions freely. In fear of punishment, most Libyan writers criticized the regime and discussed their struggles in the society only implicitly. Censorship has led Libyan writers to adopt different literary styles to reflect on society. In this paper, I will shed light on one of the writers` techniques by examining six Libyan short stories using a stylistics analysis approach. I analyze the lexical feature of the language focusing on adjectives. I investigate how Libyan authors discuss socio-economic and political issues through the use of adjectives. I put the adjectives into different categories: adjectives of color, physical adjectives, personal adjectives, emotional adjectives, adjectives of nationality, etc. I look at how the denotative and connotative meanings of the adjectives reflect cultural concepts in Libyan society and the authors` perspectives. Data reveal that Libyan authors rely heavily on adjectives to help represent positive and negative images, as well as empowering and dis-empowering characters in the stories. Data analysis also reveals certain patterns in style such as the use of the colors black & white to create negative and positive atmospheres and to demonize and romanticize characters.

Guided written conversations were studied from English speakers at four different proficiency levels. They were analyzed according to their speech act realization, speech event realization, and conversation management (as reflected by three levels of speech acts: primary, secondary, and complementary). All four proficiency levels were found to be capable in the formulation of speech acts and events, demonstrating access to certain discourse principles at all levels. Language proficiency was found to effect the way in which a speech event was realized to a greater degree than the level of formality was found to effect the way in which the speech events were realized.

This study examines variations in the performance of speech acts and additional discourse features in situational speech patterns of Peninsular Spanish. Based on studies by Blum-Kulka, et al. (1989), nine situations were created, varying from less severe to more severe, to elicit natural responses for apologies and requests. Forty participants from Castile and Andalusia were interviewed, and the data were coded to examine the differences in speech act realizations and the use of specific discourse features. The participants responses were classified by regional, gender, and age differences for the data set. Sociolinguistic differences in the use of additional discourse features were also compared, examining the use of alerters, personal address items, intensifiers, polite markers, hedges, accepting responsibility, offering repair, and the expression of need. In part three of this study, native speaker judgments and metalinguistic discussions were conducted to test the speech act data of participants from Castile and Andalusia and to verify the acceptability of the responses. Results show that in the performance of speech acts, little variation is seen for region, gender, and age. The speech acts for apologies and requests are formulaic in nature, and only change with situational variation. Likewise, even though some differences exist, there is no statistical significance in the use of additional discourse features according to region, gender, and age. The use of these discourse features provides information for Spanish language variation and in the areas of linguistic politeness and language and gender. Results from the metalinguistic discussions provide qualitative data, supporting the findings of speech act realizations. Further investigation is suggested modifying targeted speech acts and situational contexts.

The Adjunct Island Constraint proposed by Ross (1967) together with Chomsky’s Barriers (1986) are not sufficient to account for the ungrammaticality of wh-extraction out of adjunct clauses, nor do they address the instances of grammatical extraction out of such constructions. Extraction out of Adjunct Islands is now completely predictable using a combination of Chomsky’s Minimalist Program (1995) and Kehler’s Coherence Theory (2002). The combination of these two theories gives an account of both the grammatical and ungrammatical instances of wh- extraction out of adjuncts. The principles of the Minimalist Program together with evidence from Old English adverbial clauses determines the necessary structure for grammatical extraction, while an extension of the Coherence Theory mandates the required semantic relation between the matrix and adjunct clauses. This thesis proves that the possibility of wh-extraction out of adjunct islands is dependent upon the seamless integration of syntax and semantics.

This work adopts Langacker's cognitive grammar approach and addresses the cognitive significance of result in Mandarin Chinese, as expressed in resultant construals in the Mandarin Chinese bă construction: X bă Y Z. I identify the semantic prime of result in Mandarin Chinese, and discuss its role in the resultative verbal compound construction, the V-de-EXT resultative construction, and the bèi construction, with particular focus on the bă construction. I provide evidence for the resultant nature of segment Z in the bă construction in (1) aspectual markers, (2) resultative suffixes, (3) resultative verbal compounds, (4) locative complements, (5) directional complements, (6) the double object gěi 'give' construction, (7) inalienable possession; (8) durative and frequentative markers; and (9) the regard predicate. I consider the semantic category of result in the Mandarin Chinese bă construction to be grounded in the conceptualization of the morpheme bă 'to take, to hold.' The manipulative sense of holding an object is transformed into a metaphorical resultative sense of holding a grammatical event. Comparisons with the English "get/have + p.p. construction" and the German inseparable prefixes reveal the shared cross-linguistic nature of agency and result. I utilize Grosz, Joshi, and Weinstein's (1995) centering discourse approach to analyze the Mandarin Chinese bă construction X bă Y Z, and determine that segment Y is the backward-looking center. Prince's assumed familiarity accounts for the cognitive constraints of segment Y. I ascribe the cognitive significance of result to the claim of construal differences. I apply cognitive relativism to pedagogical implications for SLA instruction of the Mandarin Chinese bă construction.

A theory-based perspective is essential to a full understanding of infinitive clauses in early Latin. Some previous work focusing on syntactic theory has failed to include appropriate Latin data or has not explained it adequately. More recent theoretical perspectives have taken the approach of Functional Grammar, dismissing much of the variation in word order and embedded clause types as driven merely by pragmatics. This study examines the syntax of early Latin from a Government and Binding viewpoint, with the aim of fully marrying the theory with the data to account for the infinitival variations. A corpus was created from the complete extant works of Accius, Caecilius, Cato, Ennius, Livius Andronicus, Lucilius, Naevius, Pacuvius, and the anonymous Senatus Consultum de Bacchanalibus as well as five selected plays from Plautus and three from Terence (comprising a total of over 200,000 words with 3,828 infinitives). One of the main findings is that certain structures such as passivization are a strategy to avoid the syntatic ambiguity that would otherwise result from the confluence of multiple accusative-case assignments. The results show that infinitival complements with more than one overt accusative noun phrase are relatively rare (occurring in only 14% of contexts), while structures that avoid ambiguity, such as finite clause variants, passivization, and null noun phrases, are more frequent (occurring in about one fourth of possible contexts). The study also provides a baseline for examining grammaticalization and other language changes in the history of Latin.