The research presented in this thesis investigates the feasibility of a corpus-influenced syllabus for primary literacy education in Japan. It achieves this with reference to two aspects of the context within which such an initiative might be developed. One is the cultural context; that is,the demands of primary ELT in Japan. Therefore this research explores policy makers’ and teachers’views, the texts frequently used in primary ELT classrooms, and some aspects of teacher training. The other focus is from a linguistic viewpoint, concerned with the identification of linguistic features which pupils need to learn for the development of their English literacy. This thesis describes an innovative method for identifying such features. The cultural context was investigated by means of three surveys, the first of which was used to inform the choice of texts to include in the corpus. The surveys reveal a lack of attention to literacy teaching and teacher education in primary ELT in Japan, but also point to some potential for syllabus development. The research offers support for a corpus-influenced syllabus for teaching English literacy, while concluding that there is a need for incorporating it into teacher education and developing teaching methodologies which suit the pedagogic context of the Japanese primary school classroom.

This thesis reports on a longitudinal qualitative study of the L2 motivational systems of a group of South Korean university students. The study adopts a complex dynamics system approach to the collection and analysis of data, and develops an original three-level model of context to investigate the interaction of elements within the learners’ motivational systems and to track how these interactions led to perceptible changes in these systems over the course of the research. The study highlights the complex, dynamic nature of L2 motivation and the necessity of including context as a key part of the L2 motivational system. It further calls into question traditional conceptions of autonomy in the field and the general applicability of some current concepts in L2 motivation. In addition, it emphasizes the importance of non-quantitative approaches in illuminating the motivational processes at work within individuals. On the basis of these findings, the thesis calls for the general incorporation of complexity perspectives in L2 motivation research and for language pedagogy to incorporate the insights gained from such studies to enhance the classroom environments and learners’ investment in language learning.

The interface of corpus linguistics and second language writing has led to extensive corpus-based research focusing on a description of academic writing. The overwhelming majority of this research, however, has focused on scholarly writing, which may not be a valid model for novice writing. This thesis proposes the teaching of second language writing should be informed by a staircase model of writing progression which aims instruction at the level of student writing. For English for academic purposes writers in intensive English programs, this target is first year undergraduate writing, specifically freshman composition as it is taught in North American higher education contexts. This study specifically compares the frequency of the noun phrase in freshman composition writing and scholarly writing with two main aims: to provide empirical evidence of the differences between the two levels of writing and to contribute to a description of freshman composition writing. The findings from this comparison clearly demonstrate that noun phrases in both levels of writing employ a discernible pattern, and there are distinct differences between those patterns. A critical need form pedagogical materials to focus more on phrasal structures in general, but especially nounphrases, is evident.

This is a qualitative, interpretive study of discourse on bilingual education in two rural primary schools in Mozambique. My aim was to explore how different views about the purpose and value of bilingual education were manifested in classroom discourse practices and how these views related to historical and socio-political processes. I combined linguistic ethnography and critical, interpretive approaches to bilingualism and bilingual education. Data was collected using different techniques, mainly observation, audio recording, note taking, and interviewing. The study showed that the main official purpose of using local languages in education in Mozambique had been to facilitate pupils’ learning. There were three sets of values associated with bilingual education in the sites in this study: pedagogical, socio-cultural and socio-economic. The use of local languages in the classrooms had been creating spaces for pupil participation and learning. I also found that the beneficiaries in the local communities focussed more on the socio-cultural value of bilingual education, which they saw as prompting the development and upgrading of their languages and associated cultural practices. The study also revealed that, with the introduction of bilingual education, participants had begun to consider the potential capital value of local languages in formal linguistic markets. The general conclusion is that bilingual education is playing a role in social and cultural transformation in the sites in this study, though its potential has yet to be fully explored.

It has been over 35 years since the publication of Reddy's 1979 study of the metaphors for communication, an article that could be said to mark the starting point of Conceptual Metaphor Theory. However, despite the understanding that metaphor and figurative language are fundamental to language, in that time there has been little progress in introducing metaphor into the L2 classroom, especially at lower levels. This thesis argues that learners at this level have figurative resources that have not yet been acknowledged, but could be key elements in developing an L2 metaphor pedagogy. To explore this possibility, a mixed methods investigation of the effect of mutimodal writing prompts based on extended metaphors was conducted with two cohorts of low-intermediate Japanese university students. The mixed methods data analysis revealed not only that the presentation of one extended metaphor could 'activate' metaphorical knowledge of other extended metaphors and induce the production of metaphoric language, but that multimodal material provides an as yet unexploited resource for an L2 metaphor pedagogy.

This thesis reports a study into aspects of the discourse concerning the measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) triple vaccine. The aim of the thesis is to contribute to knowledge about the ways in which debates about science are enacted in the public sphere. The study uses a corpus-assisted discourse studies (CADS) approach to examine key lexico-grammatical patterns in the JABS corpus, a corpus of texts gathered from the website of the vaccine-critical Justice Awareness and Basic Support (JABS) group. The aim of the study is to discover how participants on the JABS website discussion forum draw on discursive resources to achieve their rhetorical goals. Comparison is made with the typical lexico-grammatical patterns in the NHSvax corpus, a corpus comprising texts from NHS immunization websites. The study finds that, although there are several areas of similarity between the two corpora, the JABS corpus data contains greater evidence of evaluative lexis, a higher frequency of nouns which express evaluations of the status of discursive objects. These resources are used to reformulate and reframe propositions which originate in the medical-scientific domain. Narratives of vaccine damage are also frequently used to express warrants for expertise.

This thesis consists of ten chapters and its research methodology is a combination of quantitative and qualitative. Chapter One introduces the theme of the thesis, a demonstration of a corpus-based comparative approach in detecting the needs of the learners by looking for the similarities and disparities between the learner English (the COLEC corpus) and the NS English (the LOCNESS corpus). Chapter Two reviews the literature in relevant learner language studies and indicates the tasks of the research. The data and technology are introduced in Chapter Three. Chapter Four shows how two verb lemma lists can be made by using the Wordsmith Tools supported by other corpus and IT tools. How to make sense of the verb lemma lists is the focus of the second part of this chapter. Chapter Five deals with the individual forms of verbs and the findings suggest that there is less homogeneity in the learner English than the NS English. Chapter Six extends the research to verb–noun relationships in the learner English and the NS English and the result shows that the learners prioritise verbs over nouns. Chapter Seven studies the learners’ preferences in using the patterns of KEEP compared with those of the NSs, and finds that the learners have various problems in using this simple verb. In this chapter, too, my reservations about the traditional use of ‘overuse’ and ‘underuse’ are expressed and a finer classification system is suggested. Chapter Eight compares another frequently-occurring verb, TAKE, in the aspect of collocates and yields similar findings that the learners have problems even with such simple vocabulary. In Chapter Nine, the research findings from Chapter Four to Chapter Eight are revisited and discussed in relation to the theme of the thesis. The concluding chapter, Chapter Ten, summarises the previous chapters and envisages how learner language studies will develop in the coming few years.

Researchers in corpus linguistics and applied linguistics have recommended the use of corpus data by language learners to promote independent learning (Bernardini, 2004; Yoon & Hirvela, 2004; O’Keeffe et al, 2007). However, it is not clear to what extent learners are able to use corpus resources independently, and how they can be trained to use a corpus more effectively. This thesis reports a study of learners using a corpus for error correction. The learners recorded their processes using a think-aloud protocol. The thesis records three main findings. Firstly, the learners found it easiest to spot and correct errors of clause structure, noun class, adjective pattern, and collocation; they found verb pattern the most difficult errors to correct. Secondly, the learners most frequently searched for information about colligation, collocation, acceptability/occurrence of strings in a corpus, and determiner-noun agreement; they searched for information about lexical pattern relatively infrequently. Finally, the learners worked most effectively with the corpus when they entered single words as the search terms and scrutinized the concordance lines for collocates and patterns; they worked least effectively with the corpus when they entered whole strings of words. The thesis also makes recommendations for facilitating corpus use in classrooms and specifies the training that learners need to use corpora effectively.

Data-Driven Learning (DDL), an approach developed by Tim Johns, is an exploratory learning methodology which enables students to analyze the lexical and grammatical patterns of key words in various authentic contexts, organized into a series of concordance lines. It is a learner-centered approach that encourages students to work autonomously, engaging in what Johns calls ‘discovery learning’. DDL has proven itself to be an effective tool for advanced students to further improve the depth of their linguistic knowledge, but the wider possibilities to which DDL might be applied have been sparsely researched. In this study, I investigate the efficacy of DDL as a core component of two communication-oriented English language learning courses at a Japanese university. The courses couple traditional concordance line analysis with communicative activities. I call this novel teaching methodology ‘Communicative Data-Driven Learning’. This study is a form of action research, which involves actively reflecting upon and revising approaches at every stage, from planning, through execution, to observing results. The data was collected in two years: in 2014 and 2015. The results demonstrate that Communicative DDL has immense potential for developing students’ language competencies, especially with respect to their fluency and confidence when communicating in English.

This thesis reports a study of presented discourse in popular science narratives of discovery in English. It focuses on the fictionalizing role of presented discourse. The thesis proposes minor adjustments to the existing models of presented discourse analysis, dividing discourse presentation into Public Discourse (speech/writing) and Private Discourse (thought). After exploring the forms and functions of discourse presentation in the narratives, the thesis concludes that Private Discourse prefers the forms commonly associated with non-fiction while assigning to them the functions most often observed in fiction. All the forms of discourse presentation in the narratives contain dramatizing properties, yet Public Discourse possesses the highest degree of dramatization. Private Discourse in the narratives possesses communicative properties generally assigned to speech/writing presentation exclusively. Private Discourse is more likely to communicate scientific hypotheses than reveal the inner worlds of actants. The thesis concludes with an examination of presented discourse outside the narratives of discovery. This analysis confirms the phenomena observed in the narratives and reveals a unique feature of presented discourse outside the narratives-the fictionalized reader-a fictional actant created using discourse presentation. The findings of the thesis present a strong argument in favour of fictionality in popular science.