This study investigated the ways English native and Arab EFL student writers in a UK university from two disciplines (i.e. Linguistics and Literature) use language in their master’s dissertations to interact with readers. How they present themselves and convey judgements and opinions, and how they connect with readers and establish rapport were examined by the employment of Hyland’s (2005b) model of stance and engagement, which encompasses nine categories: hedges, boosters, attitude markers, self-mentions, reader references, directives, asides, questions, and references to shared knowledge. The primary data used consisted of a corpus of 39 master’s dissertations and discourse-based semi-structured interviews with 15 of the writers. While a corpus analysis helped to reveal which features were overused and which ones were underused, interviews were conducted to discover more about how and why the writer participants used such features in their academic writing. The findings suggest that while it is true that both disciplinary community and cultural background are very likely to have an impact on the way writers position themselves and their readers, there are other factors related to the students’ conceptions of academic writing in general and their audience in particular which appear to have a more vital role in the writers’ use of stance and engagement markers. These include personality differences, stylistic preferences, previous education, and supervisors’ comments and advice. The thesis closes by exploring the implications of this study for both EAP writing pedagogy and dissertation supervision and proposing some new directions for future research.

Within the socio-cultural school of thought, Galperin, was influenced by Vygotsky’s theory of mind. Following Vygotsky’s argument about the leading role of instruction within the Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD), Galperin developed an instructional approach, known as Systemic Theoretical Instruction (STI), which encourages the active construction of materialized concepts and their monitored transformation into mental processes in order to foster development. Following from this, the present thesis aimed at investigating a) how knowledge at a conceptual level can be fostered and supported online, b) the affordances of an online (Moodle-based) Pedagogic Unit to potentially foster L2 English online academic training with specific reference to Applied Linguistics terminology (although the findings could be applicable to other disciplines as well) c) the effectiveness of the online scaffolding mechanisms that were developed for each online task and d) the students’ views with regards to all the previous. To this end, this study adopted an exploratory qualitative approach and collected various types of data to support conceptual development among 13 UK based L2 learners who were pursuing postgraduate studies. Importantly, while existing STI investigations have employed mainly qualitative data, the analysis conducted for this study included both quantitative and qualitative methods such as introspection techniques, recorded interviews, pre-post interview tasks, concept-mapping, online Moodle tasks and questionnaires, screen-captures and audio recordings of the online activities. The findings revealed that the Moodle unit was a suitable environment in fostering the students’ conceptual development and that specific scaffolding features and types of tasks have contributed towards this. Furthermore, this study contributes to the growing body of research into the potential role of scaffolding to enhance ZPDs in online environments in order to facilitate the L2 learners’ English for Academic Purposes training. It also sheds light into the affordances of STI and online environments to develop the students’ academic speaking and reading skills which, ultimately, contribute to overall conceptual development. Finally, it highlights the potential role of verbalisation (through introspection tasks, use of concept maps and oral presentations) as a means of both fostering and assessing conceptual development.

The question of ‘the Pictish language’ has been discussed for over four hundred years, and for well over two centuries it has been the subject of ceaseless and often heated debate. The main disagreement focusing on its linguistic categorisation – whether it was Celtic, Germanic (using modern terminology) or whether it belonged to some more exotic language group such as Basque. If it was Celtic then was it Brittonic or Goidelic? The answer to such questions was of some importance in ascertaining to whom the Scottish past belonged. Was it to immigrant Irish, conquering Germanic peoples or native Britons? The twentieth century saw the normalising of the view that it was closely related to Brittonic with some erudite scholars maintaining that another, non-Celtic language, was also spoken in Pictland. The debate subsequently shifted to focusing on just how close was the relationship between Pictish and Neo-Brittonic. Was Pictish simply a northerly dialect variant of the latter or was it indeed a more distinct and perhaps conservative form, evolving independently in an area outwith Roman power and linguistic influence? Recently, as the field of Pictish studies was subjected to both linguistic and historical scrutiny, discussions have become significantly more sophisticated, but the core question remains, as to whether Pictish distinctiveness merits the label ‘dialect’ or ‘language’, as the Venerable Bede himself stated. This thesis will investigate this core issue by providing an overview of previous thinking and scrutinising the evidence for early divergence. It is intended as groundwork for much needed further studies into this field.

The current thesis explored diagnosis and rehabilitation of deficits in memory and language, using a multiple neuropsychological case study design. Broadly, the work evaluated the use of cognitive theory to diagnose patients’ clinical presentations and inform rehabilitation methods, and explored how outcomes from these interventions can be used to test cognitive theory in turn. This bi-directional link was explored in two ways: Firstly, theoretically-motivated groupings of word stimuli (e.g. ‘neighbourhoods’) were used to evaluate patterns of post-therapy generalisation, testing hypothesised associations between types of word stimuli. Secondly, the work identified proposed links between cognitive functions, using rehabilitation to test the validity, and nature, of these associations. The thesis is therefore comprised of two parts: Part 1 explored ‘neighbourhood’ effects in language and how they might be used to direct generalised improvement following rehabilitation (Chapters 2, 3, 4 and 5) and Part 2 evaluated associations and dissociations of functions in the cognitive architecture, across therapeutic and experimental contexts (Chapters 6 and 7). The work demonstrated that using theoretically-driven stimuli sets in rehabilitation can maximise generalised improvements following language treatment, and detailed how rehabilitation can be harnessed to test the integrity of associations between cognitive functions in the context of multiple deficits.

This thesis explores the use of discourse markers (DMs) in the speech of Chinese non-native speakers (NNSs) of English and native speakers (NSs), using corpus methodologies, the 'Linear Unit Grammar' analysis (Sinclair and Mauranen 2006) and text-based analyses. It reports that the DMs for analysis, 'like', 'oh', 'well', 'you know', 'I mean', 'you see', 'I think' and 'now', occur more frequently in the dialogic genres than in the monologic genres extracted from the three corpora, SECCL, MICASE and ICE-GB. The co-occurrence of DMs is taken as evidence to determine the categories for discussion with the suggested functions being secondary interpretations. Surprisingly, there are similarities in the use of DMs between Chinese NNSs and NSs. For the differences, some require NSs to become more tolerant and inclusive of the versions of English and some require pedagogical interventions for the Chinese NNSs. This thesis demonstrates that the use of DMs correlates with the genre, context, type of activity and identity of the speaker. All such factors affect the speakers' choice of a DM to use when giving priority to discourse organisation, fluency, the engagement of the listeners, the construction of the speaker‟s persona and the creation of solidarity.

This collation of 8 of von Soden's manuscripts is a companion work to my earlier investigation into his manuscripts. A similar division of this thesis is employed, with the nucleus in sections III, IV & V. Section III, with the general and individual descriptions of the MSS involved, is an attempt to bring together in one place all the known details about the history, the format, the scribe, the script and any other relevant material. Section IV contains the Synoptic Collation of the Group in Acts and the Catholic Epistles. Section V is itself divided into six parts and is concerned with the singular and subsingular readings. The conclusion is that neither can logically be separated from one another as the interrelationship of individual MSS is far more complex than von Soden makes evident.

This thesis is composed of two parts, encompassed in a third: a poetry collection; a critical dissertation; and an artist’s book. The thesis as a whole is entitled Florilegium. This title, from the Latin flos, or ‘flower’, and legere, ‘to gather’, refers to the medieval system of collecting extracts from various authors to form a larger body of work. It is also applicable to flower-treatises, dedicated to their ornamental nature rather than medicinal or scientific. The critical dissertation comes in the form of a glossary. It intends to show that the flower plays an essential role in linking Modernist poetics with that of its Romantic predecessors and beyond. In isolated and ‘illuminated’ examples from Aristotle to Zukofsky, it examines the lineage of botanical poetry, in the light of its unique linguistic makeup: a vernacularized scientific lexicon established in the Latin of Carl Linnaeus. While the critical component of the thesis is an interrogation of botanical language, the poetry collection is its living representation. To enhance the living nature of the text, I have designed and printed an artist’s book, which also acts as an herbarium for floral specimens collected and pressed over the duration of my degree. The design of the book is in keeping with traditional florilegia, incorporating historic binding techniques, typography, paper, and size.

This thesis examines the syntax of the sentence and the style of three of Alberto Arbasino’s early works: Le piccole vacanze (1957), Il ragazzo perduto (1959) and Fratelli d’Italia (1963). The period in which these works were written and published was one of great linguistic changes, with Italian starting to become the language spoken by the majority of the population and the consequent formation of a new variety, the italiano dell’uso medio. This social evolution has also consequences for the language of narrative: whereas some authors embrace the lingua media and a clear, communicative style (stile semplice), others reject it and opt for linguistic experimentation. Although Arbasino is typically placed in this second slant of narrative writing, one cannot so easily assign him to a group or stream, since from the beginning of his career he developed a personal poetics influenced by modernist writers, as well as his own ideas on language and style. The aims of this study are first of all to chart the birth and diachronic evolution of Arbasino’s style, and evaluate the influence of his syntactic choices on it. Then investigate how the syntax of each work compares to the lines of development of contemporary Italian and to the language of contemporary narrative. My analysis begins with a comprehensive outline of the features of contemporary Italian and of the styles of writing in post-war narrative, ending with a focus on the character of Arbasino’s poetics and ideas on language and style in the decade 1954-1964. A brief chapter then illustrates the methodology used, based on quantitative analysis of syntactic aspects, and clarifies terminology. Thereafter, the core of the thesis is composed of three case studies that examine thoroughly the syntax of the sentence and other important syntactic devices of the three works separately, comparing data with corpora of Italian and with studies on narrative language. Finally, a concluding chapter highlights the lines of development of syntax and style in the three works. On the basis of this research, it is clear that the syntax of the sentence places Arbasino among experimental writers tending to break with the linguistic standard. Moreover, Arbasino’s syntactic choices in the three works reflect an increasing distance from traditional literary modes of representation and the progressive affirmation of his own literary project, founded in the poetics of realismo critico.

The thesis investigates the phenomenon of multilingualism from a Bourdieusian-derived perspective with a focus on the conditions enabling second-generation immigrant agents to produce, reproduce, and negotiate linguistic practices with non-autochthonous minority languages in the officially bilingual context of Cardiff, Wales. The thesis follows in the footsteps of Pierre Bourdieu, using his model of linguistic production and circulation as a conceptual lens for the analysis of the linguistic biographies of thirteen second-generation multilingual participants. In doing so, the project also tests the suitability of this model to account for the production of alternative linguistic practices other than the dominant ones, for transformation, and ultimately, for the phenomenon of multilingualism associated with the process of immigration. The analysis of the linguistic biographies focuses on the development of the linguistic habitus of the second-generation agents taking into consideration the socio-historically constructed power relations which have influenced their trajectory. This involves understanding the relationship between such a linguistic habitus and the linguistic market(s) with which the interviewees have interacted. First, the thesis suggests that in Cardiff English is recognized as the legitimate language, Welsh is partially legitimate, while non-autochthonous minority languages are illegitimate. Second, in light of the linguistic biographies the project examines how the interplay between the home, the school, religious practices, and digital practices influenced the construction of alternative linguistic markets according to which the linguistic habitus of the participants developed, enabling them to reproduce linguistic practices with Arabic, Bengali, Somali, Urdu, or Punjabi. The study thus suggests that the phenomenon of multilingualism can be redefined from the perspective of an individual’s linguistic habitus understood as an integral and generative set of dispositions which develops and functions according to the socio-historically constructed conditions and power relations within and, crucially, among multiple linguistic markets.

It is a widely debated subject whether a patient with a diagnosis of major depression and a history of psychosis is able to use and comprehend metaphors. There are a number of studies that indicate that metaphor comprehension with this population is very reduced. However, within the context of psychotherapy metaphor is poorly defined and the concept is often applied inconsistently in academic literature. This thesis examines a commonly reported occurrence of metaphor formation in art psychotherapy and in particular, examines a type of metaphor that offers a novel perspective about interpersonal relationships called the creative relationship metaphor. This thesis aims to develop a definition of a form of metaphor that is helpful in clinical practice and understand the clinical formation of this metaphor in art psychotherapy. The first part of the thesis develops a new metaphor type, called the ‘creative relationship metaphor’ (CRM), beginning with a psycholinguistic perspective. 2 3 In summary, the key characteristics of the CRM being developed is that it is: • An interpersonal event • An image based representation which is cognitively mapped • Context dependent • A novel way of perceiving the person, thing or event The hypothesis that patients diagnosed with severe mental health issues can produce CRMs is tested through two analyses. The first analysis focuses on the defining features of the creative relationship metaphor and the second analysis focuses on the therapist’s influence on metaphor formation. In the clinical examples, the increased capacity to reflect on significant relationships is linked to the formation of the CRM. These results offer preliminary evidence suggesting that there are specific in-session interventions that support the development of the CRM in the assessment context.