This thesis investigates the sequential organisation of offers and acceptance in Saudi Arabic talk-in-interaction. This investigation is implemented through the use of the methodology of Conversation Analysis. Through analysing Saudi Arabic naturally-occurring data, I look at offer sequences as a whole, and not just the offer and its initial response. The data suggest that, mostly, Saudi offers are not immediately accepted; the acceptance happens only after turns of vigorous rejection and negotiation between the offerer and his/her recipient. As this is the first conversation analytic study of offers in Arabic talk-in-interaction, its aim is to investigate, through the use of naturally-occurring talk, the interactional significance of the delayed acceptance and how this action is ultimately accomplished in Saudi Arabic interaction. Through the analysis, I examine these initial rejections that come as a response to Saudi offers, and how they are usually produced immediately and without delay. Furthermore, I investigate when offerers treat these initial rejections as just mere pro forma rejections that require negotiation compared to when they treat it as a definitive rejection. This ultimate outcome of the offer sequence is usually projectable due to the different use of offer formats: declarative, imperative or interrogative. Also, this outcome is related to the offerers’ and their recipients’ orientation to identity, such as membership categories and authority, and the role played by these in the recognisability of action.

This study concerns Malay compounding. The aim is to have an in-depth description and analysis of the topic which will create a more comprehensive and systematic understanding of the phenomenon in the language. Various features and issues in relation to compounding are identified and explored in order to achieve this aim. Given that Malay compounds and phrases are structurally similar, the question of whether compounding is a morphological or syntactical product is first entertained. Discussion on this issue favours the understanding that compounds can be distinct objects from those of structurally identical phrasal ones in Malay language. The focus is then given on the topics of definition, components, headedness, criteria and classification of compounds as the foundations of Malay compoundhood. It is agreed that Malay can have left, right and headless compounds, with the prototypical structures of [X Y] (X)(Y) for endocentric and [X Y] (Z) for exocentric compounds. It is also agreed that the measures for Malay compounds (with degrees of suitability) are the syntactical criteria (inseparability, modification, component switching, circumfixation and reduplication), phonological criteria (stress and assimilation), and semantic criteria (compositional/lexicalised status) of compoundhood. This study also supports the classification of Malay compounds base on the relationship between their components, i.e. under the subordinative, attributive or coordinative relationships. Based on these foundations, this study is able to analyse and organize the different types of compounds available from the corpus, among others the (NN, NV, NA) nominal compounds, the (VN, VV, VA) verbal compounds, the (AN, AA) adjectival compounds and the idiomatic compounds. In general, the attributive relationship has the most common occurrence throughout the analysis, followed by the coordinative ones, and finally the extremely limited subordinative relationship. The discussions and findings of this study have definitely enhanced the overall knowledge on Malay compounding.

Since 1868 to the present day, the Ministry of Education, Sports, Science and Culture (MEXT) has implemented many reforms to enhance English education in Japanese universities. However, much still remains to be done to improve the situation and one of the biggest hurdles is the fact that there are many unmotivated students in Japanese university EFL classrooms. This thesis explores the reasons for this problem by focusing on inter- and intra-relations between teachers and students in this context. Data were collected through classroom observations, interviews and questionnaires. The study employs both qualitative and quantitative research methodologies and uses space and methodological triangulation in order to overcome parochialism. My conclusions are that: 1) Visible and invisible inter-member relations exist between members of university classes and their teachers; 2) The teacher's behaviour affects the students' behaviour and impacts on their learning; and 3) Cooperative learning has a positive influence on language acquisition; 4) Japanese university students may not perceive how little interaction they have with their teacher; 5) Students exhibit gender differences in terms of the types of problems encountered and the ways in which they deal with them, but some problems are dealt with negatively by female and male students alike; and 6) Teachers appear not to perceive the problems and when they do they often deal with them by using negative strategies.

In this thesis I primarily address those within media and communications studies who research mass media audiences and their engagement with a diverse range of texts. I ask in what ways our knowledge about the interpretation of genres, emergent from many decades of empirical research with mass media audiences, is useful in understanding engagement with new media. This conceptual task is pursued empirically by applying a conceptual repertoire derived from reception analysis to interviews with youthful users of the online genre of social networking sites (SNSs). The thesis presents findings on the heterogeneity of children’s experiences in using SNSs following their perceptions of authorial presence, their notions of others using the text, their expertise with the interface and pushing textual boundaries. I explore four tasks involved in the act of interpretation – those being intertextual, critical, collaborative and problem-resolving. In analysis, I also reflect on a selection of the core conceptual tools that have been animated in this thesis, in research design as well as analysis and interpretation. It is concluded that inherited concepts - text and interpretation, continue to be useful in extension from the world of television audiences to the world of the internet. Second, inherited priorities from audience reception research which connect clearly to the conversation on media and digital literacies prove to be important by connecting resistance and the broader task of critique to the demands of being analytical, evaluative and critical users of new media. Third, the notion of interpretation as work is useful overall, to retain in research with new media use, for there is a range of tasks and responsibilities involved in making sense of new media.

This study is broadly concerned with the analysis of ideology in discourse. More specifically, it investigates the role modality plays in reflecting underlying ideologies as well as ideological inconsistencies in three practical analyses of discourse. Achieving these objectives is, I argue, dependent on a view of discourse which is not only functional but also pragmatic. The functional aspect of this view reflects the broad objectives of functional linguistics: i.e. relating linguistic structures to social structures. The pragmatic aspect reflects an emphasis on the need not to exclude 'the reader' from the process of interpretation. Whereas previous studies have either entirely neglected or presented an unsatisfactory account of the reader, the proposed functional-pragmatic approach to discourse analysis resolves this issue by allowing a systematic variance in interpretation. This is done in the light of a systematic account of modality which helps present a realistic and practical consideration of the role of the reader in approaching discourse analysis. Again, in line with a functional and pragmatic view of discourse, the argument put forward in this study is that all 'types' of discourse can be approached in a similar manner for critical analysis. Consequently, practical analyses of ideology through modality in three instances of discourse: literary texts, political texts and scientific texts are presented. The overall aim is to show how a systematic, functional and pragmatic analysis of modality is adequate in critically analysing the ideologies present in all texts.

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Children with specific deficits in language do not form a homogeneous group, but present with varied profiles of language skills and deficits. Research in children with language problems has focussed on deficits in the acquisition of lexical forms and syntactic structures of language, but our understanding of children's deficits with the meaning of language remains limited. Sociocognitive abilities are necessary for discovering the meaning of language, and it has been hypothesised that some children with specific deficits in language have sociocognitive difficulties. In this thesis, it is argued that nonverbal imitation, which does not involve the processing of structural aspects of language, may be indicative of sociocognitive difficulties. More specifically, it is argued that types of nonverbal imitation which serve a primarily social Junction are more informative about sociocognitive abilities than types of nonverbal imitation which serve a primarily instrumental function. In line with this reasoning, it has been found that different forms of nonverbal imitation can be separately impaired and associated with different language skills in children with autism spectrum disorder (ASO), who are known to have sociocognitive difficulties. However, there has been very little exploration of nonverbal imitation skills in children with specific deficits in language, and existing studies have predominantly involved school-age children. This study set out to investigate elicited immediate nonverbal imitation as a measure of sociocognitive skills in young typically developing (TO) children and children with specific language delay (SLO), and also to investigate relations between performance on nonverbal imitation and language in the SLD sample. A subsidiary aim was to compare the performance of the TD and SLD samples on verbal imitation. Participants were German-speaking TD (n=60) and SLD (n=45) children aged 2-3 1/2 years, who were divided into three age groups (2;0-2;5, 2;6-2;11, 3;0-3;5 years). A novel battery of tasks measured their attempt and ability to imitate a range of nonverbal (body movements, common instrumental acts on objects, pretend acts) and verbal (words, nonwords, sentences) target acts. It was found that groups with SLD performed significantly below TO groups on some, but importantly not all, nonverbal imitation tasks. Results demonstrated that children with SLD did not have a general difficulty with nonverbal imitation, but a specific difficulty with target acts hypothesised to serve a primarily social function. A comparison of types and rates of nonverbal imitation errors revealed that error patterns in the oldest SLD group resembled those in the youngest TD group, suggesting a delay rather than deviance in some types of nonverbal imitation within the SLD sample. Different relations between performance on nonverbal imitation and language emerged at different ages, pointing towards the possibility that the nature of associations between nonverbal imitation and language might be linked to age and change over time. As expected, results revealed verbal imitation deficits in the SLD sample at all ages. The theoretical and clinical implications of findings are discussed.

This thesis explores the relevant systems which model the choices speakers make when referring to objects. Referring expressions have received relatively little attention in Systemic Functional Linguistics, although from a purely structural perspective some work has attempted to account for postmodification in the nominal group. The main goal of this thesis is to produce a theoretical and analytical approach to referring expressions including complex referring expressions in particular. This requires a shift in perspective from structural (‘nominal group’) to functional (‘referring expression’).

This thesis analyses tense and aspect, in particular the Aspect Hypothesis (Salaberry & Shirai 2002; Bardovi-Harlig 2000; Andersen & Shirai 1996) and introduces an approach to teaching it: sociocognitive metaphorm (SCM). Sociocognitive is a combination of sociocultural theory (Lantolf & Appel 1996; Lantolf 2000) and cognitive grammar (Langacker 1987,1991). These theories are compatible because they share the psycholinguistic position that language and language development are conceptually based. Metaphorm is a combination of metaphor and form. Metaphor is central to concept development (i.e., conceptual metaphor). Form refers to grammatical structure. Much of temporal relations are expressed metaphorica1ly and hence metaphor also plays an essential role in the tense-aspect conceptualisation, grammaticalisation and acquisition process. The thesis is divided into four parts: Developing SCM, SCM Theory, Researching SCM and Applying SCM. Developing SCM contains a second language acquisition analysis of the Aspect Hypothesis as well as a diachronic and synchronic grammatical meta-analysis of aspect. SCM Theory outlines the process of integrating cognitive grammar with sociocultural theory. Vygotskian (1978, 1986) approaches to learning development, in particular, the zone of proximal development (ZPD), playa prominent role in this part. Researching SCM presents quantitative and qualitative results from a holistic (i.e., metaphoric) empirical classroom study designed to illuminate teaching tense-aspect as sociocognitive metaphorm as well as results from a more analytical (i.e., metonymic) follow-up study investigating the sequence and rate of acquisition of perfect aspect and future tense. The holistic study was longitudinal involving eleven different taskplans to teach grammar through metaphor. The follow-up research study analyses a sequence of instruction based upon conceptualisation processes. The tmal part, Applying SCM, to illustrate the sociocognitive pedagogical approach to teaching grammar as metaphor, includes revised taskplans that were utilised in the empirical research part of this study. The thesis concludes with a summary of the conceptual nature of tense-aspect as well as suggestions for teaching it.

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