This study investigates how the two pragmatic markers 'I mean' and 'you know' are used by Chinese EFL learners as compared to British speakers. To describe how these two markers by used by the Chinese learners, this study first investigates how they are used in the British speakers’ data. To obtain a finer picture of how they are used by the native speakers, the interpretation of their pragmatic meanings is open to all plausible explanations instead of being confined to one single theory or framework. As a result, this study sets up its own categories and comes up with much longer function lists than previous studies. In addition, a new framework is proposed. Following the completion of a detailed description of the pragmatic functions of I mean and you know, a detailed and systemic comparison between them in terms of the specific functions they play and their positioning are carried out on the grounds that these two markers are analyzed by following the same approach in the same data set. By highlighting the similarities and differences between them and explaining why, the comparison improves our understanding how they relate to each other in conversation. Compared to the British speakers, the Chinese learners show different patterns of I mean and you know in their L2 English. The main features of the learners’ uses of I mean and you know are: firstly, I mean is markedly under-represented and less pragmatized while you know is markedly over-represented and more pragmatized; secondly, both I mean and you know are used in more restricted contexts; finally, the pragmatic functions of I mean are more evenly distributed while you know heavily depends on a very small number of functions. Since I mean and you know are very unlikely to be taught in the classroom, the accounting for the patterns of them in the learners’ data is approached from the perspective of second language acquisition. This study follows the assumption that learners’ L2 production can be seen as the result of the interaction of all potential factors and the importance of a certain factor varies from one L2 phenomenon to another. The analysis seems to suggest that the learners’ uses of I mean are greatly influenced by the congruence between the pragmatic meaning and semantic meaning of I mean while the learners’ uses of you know are mainly affected by L1 influence. Other factors that seem to have impact on the production of both markers include the tasks performed by the learners and the learners’ proficiency level.

The main purpose of this study is to investigate language practices in the linguistic landscape (LL) of Jordanian cities. There have been few research studies that examine the LL of Jordanian cities, and none has investigated multilingualism. This study is intended to fill this gap in LL research. By means of qualitative and quantitative methods, it aims to discover the extent to which multilingualism is reflected in the LL. The main fieldwork was conducted in November and December 2012 in urban Jordan. Ten streets were selected in each of six major Jordanian cities, including Irbid, Salt, Zarqa, Amman, Karak and Aqaba, sixty streets in total. A LL item represents ‘any piece of text within a spatially definable frame’ (Backhaus, 2007). 4070 signs were recorded as multilingual (c. 51%), whereas 3967 signs were categorised as monolingual (c. 49%). To discover correlations between types of signs and existing languages and scripts, and to measure these against conflicting language policies, signs are categorised as ‘top-down’ or ‘bottom-up’. The notions of ‘code preference’ (Scollon & Scollon, 2003) and dynamics of language contact are employed to understand the semiotics of writing in the LL of Jordanian cities. The main data findings indicate that minority languages are almost absent, so a questionnaire was introduced as an additional supportive source to the analysis of the findings, providing a qualitative dimension to the study. The study was conducted in July 2013, during which period the researcher interviewed 32 participants. The primary objective of this secondary study is to reflect on plausible reasons explaining the limited presence of minority languages in the visual public space. The main data indicate a dominance of both Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) and English on signs, because they are closely related to Arab nationalism and globalization respectively. Jordanian Arabic is deleted from the top-down LL, because it is closely linked to informal domains. Classical Arabic (CA) is mainly used to convey religious functions in the LL. Mixed codes, Romanised Arabic (RA) and Arabacised English (AE), are commonly used in the LL to reflect ‘glocalisation’. French, German, Italian, Spanish, Turkish and Russian are found mainly to be used on brand name and business name signs for reasons of European linguistic fetishes and tourism. The data indicate that minority languages are significantly marginalised on both top-down and bottom-up signs. Several reasons lie behind the limited visibility of established minority languages in the LL. Spatial distribution of migrant communities, the small size of minority communities, lack of (sufficient) institutional and parental support, migration and absence of close ties with families and linguistic peers are behind different stages of language maintenance and shift among older migrant groups. Linguistic russification, hostility, instrumentality of both Arabic and English and top-down language policies enacted by the Jordanian government contribute to the limited visibility of minority languages in the LL. Although foreign workers’ minority languages tend to be maintained, the instrumental functions of both Arabic and English, Islam, and the small sizes of economic minority groups have each played a key role in the limited visibility or invisibility of minority languages in the LL.

The present research, drawing upon Martin and White’s (2005) Appraisal Theory, investigated the deployment of interpersonal meanings in discussion sections of doctoral theses produced by both First Language (hereafter L1) Chinese and L1 English speakers from the Centre of Applied Linguistics (hereafter CAL) at the University of Warwick. This study adopted a corpus-based approach to examining the choices of Appraisal options made by L1 Chinese and L1 English writers. It also explored the patterns of discussing the authors’ own research findings in relation to previous literature by means of Appraisal options or co-articulations of options, which is considered as a key aspect of the rhetorical purpose of discussion sections. The statistical tests of this study showed that no significant difference was found in the use of Appraisal options between the L1C and L1E sub-corpora. This finding indicates a similar command of these interpersonal resources by both sets of writers and suggests that L1 may not be a constraint for English as second language (hereafter L2) writers on using interpersonal resources at the doctoral level. The qualitative analysis identified different preferences for co-articulating with the three main Appraisal options that the authors adopted to engage with the literature while discussing their findings. It also identified the congruent and non-congruent linguistic realizations of the two main Appraisal options that the authors used to present their claims about findings. Part of the qualitative results was shared with Masters students at CAL for the purpose of raising their awareness of the use of interpersonal language through exploration of extracts from corpus data.

As shown by research conducted in the fields of corpus linguistics, psycholinguistics and second language acquisition (SLA), formulaic sequences (e.g. collocations, idioms, phrasal verbs, lexical bundles etc.) form a crucial part of second language learners’ language competence. One of the main characteristics of some of these multi-word combinations is their idiomatic nature and idioms have been widely researched as being the most compositional type. However, little is known whether collocations can be idiomatic too. Therefore, this thesis aims to fill that gap with a specific focus on statistically-derived collocations. Three studies have been carried out to this end. The first study examined the extent of collocations whose meanings were the sums of their component parts, those that were figurative (compositional or idiomatic) and finally, collocations that were polysemous, i.e. had both literal and figurative meanings. A corpus search was performed to find the most common V+N and Adj+N combinations and results showed that the majority of them had additive meanings (as reflected in traditional definitions of collocations), very few were completely opaque and a substantial percentage were those that allowed both literal and figurative interpretation. The second study was conducted in the Chilean classroom context and it focused on the knowledge of the figurative meanings of collocations. A meaning-recall test was used as a measurement instrument and variables such as corpus frequency, semantic transparency and language use factors were manipulated. The findings demonstrated rather weak figurative knowledge and a positive relationship between this knowledge and the amount of outside engagement. The last study investigated the same type of collocations, namely how non-native speakers acquired figurative meanings incidentally through reading. An authentic novel was used as a means to manipulate one single variable, frequency of exposure. Results showed that the figurative meanings could be acquired incidentally from reading and that the point at which a substantial amount of learning occurred varied greatly among individuals. Overall, results of the studies presented in this thesis stress the importance of researching the acquisition, use and knowledge of collocations with figurative meanings as they have important implications for instructed SLA.

Formulaic language constitutes an essential part of English vocabulary and is necessary for performing a wide range of communicative functions, but knowledge and acquisition of formulaic sequences is typically found to be lacking and problematic for L2 learners. Whilst much research has been carried out on formulaic sequences such as idioms and collocations, comparatively little has been done on phrasal verbs which are nonetheless commonly perceived as one of the most challenging aspects of English vocabulary. This thesis attempts to contribute to filling this gap by exploring the usage, knowledge and acquisition of phrasal verbs by native and non-native speakers of English. Study 1 explores the semantic frequencies of the 150 most frequently used phrasal verbs using the Corpus of Contemporary American English (COCA). Results show that, whilst the vast majority of these phrasal verbs are polysemous, only two meaning senses on average are enough to cover three-quarters of the occurrences of each of them. The most frequent meaning senses of all 150 phrasal verbs are listed in the PHrasal VErb pedagogical List (PHaVE List), in frequency ranking order along with frequency percentages. The list thus offers teachers and learners the possibility of prioritising these most frequent, and thus most important, meaning senses, thereby allowing for a more systematic approach to tackling phrasal verbs. Study 2 explores L2 learners’ knowledge of a sample of phrasal verbs and meaning senses on the PHaVE List at a form-recall level of mastery, and the effect of a number of factors on this knowledge. Results show that only about 40 % of meaning senses were known, with a 20 % chance that all the various meaning senses attached to a given phrasal verb would be known. A mixed-effect modelling analysis reveals a significant effect of two factors on scores: item frequency and learner engagement in leisure activities in the L2 such as reading and social networking. This is consistent with previous research showing the robust effect of frequency for L2 knowledge of individual words and formulaic sequences, and the benefits of reading for L2 language acquisition. Study 3 investigates L2 learners’ acquisition of novel phrasal verbs through three intentional, word-focused learning activities: rote memorisation, textbook exercises, and guessing from context. Knowledge of the items was measured both immediately and one week after the teaching treatment at meaning-recall and meaning-recognition levels of mastery. Results show encouraging learning gains, similar to those found by previous research for individual words and idioms, with higher L2 proficiency and general vocabulary knowledge leading to significantly higher scores. A Friedman test reveals no significant difference in learning gains between the three activities. Taken together, these studies provide empirical evidence for the gap in L2 learners’ knowledge of phrasal verbs, but suggest that a restricted number of phrasal verbs and meaning senses can go a long way and be effectively learned using the same explicit activities commonly used for learning single words. Overall, they offer useful insights for learning and teaching English phrasal verbs in a more systematic and efficient manner.

Although second language spoken fluency has long been recognized as a major component of language proficiency, it has never been clearly defined. It has been shown that fluency is a complex phenomenon, with a host of relevant factors, and it has been suggested that it might be better separated into multiple concepts, such as cognitive fluency and utterance fluency. There is also evidence that fluency has a dialogic aspect, that is, that the fluency of a conversation is a co-construction of the two speakers, rather than simply alternating monologues. This can be observed in the confluence created by smooth turn exchanges, which results in minimizing gaps and avoiding overlap. The present study seeks to examine the co-construction of dialogic fluency through a parallel case study of two Japanese learners of English. One learner was of lower-intermediate proficiency, and the other was of higher proficiency, but both were able to create good impressions of fluency in conversations with native speakers of English. The case study design was semi-experimental in that it involved a story-retelling task done in monologue and dialogue, which was repeated to take into account the effect of practice. The case study allowed the close examination of the construction of fluency in the story-retelling task moment-by-moment through the course of the retellings, taking into account all relevant factors. The semi-experimental, parallel case study design allowed the findings to be compared (1) between monologue (where the learner recorded herself telling the story alone) and dialogue (where the learner told the story to a native speaker interlocutor), and (2) between the two learners of differing proficiency. This study was also mixed-methods in that it combined a qualitative, grounded theory approach to data analysis involving discourse analytic techniques, with quantitative comparisons of temporal variables of fluency. It was also multi-modal in that video was employed to take into account gaze, gesture, and head nods. Results of quantitative analyses revealed that the dialogues were comparatively more fluent than the monologues in terms of speech rate, articulation rate, and length of silences, for both speakers, although the higher-proficiency subject had faster speech and articulation rates than the lower-proficiency learner. This implies that narrative in dialogue is not just a listener occasionally backchanneling while the speaker delivers a monologue. The qualitative analyses revealed that the co-construction of smooth conversation was facilitated by the alignment of rhythm between the speaker and listener, supported by gaze, gestures, and head nods. The learners in these case studies were able to employ different fluency techniques for stressing words in phrases to create rhythm in spite of lower speech rates, and were able to adjust those techniques to maintain rhythm with even lower speech rates at difficult points of the story. These results confirm previous research that some apparent “dysfluencies” in speech should be considered as speech management phenomena, that positively contribute to the co-construction of fluent conversation. They also suggest that alignment between the speakers in terms of rhythm of speech and gaze are important in conversation, confirming previous research showing alignment at these and other levels of interaction. Finally, it appears that fluency is a multi-level construct, and that dialogic fluency should be considered a separate construct from cognitive fluency, of equal or more importance. This has implications for language testing, such that fluency may not be able to be captured with single test types, and for language teaching and learning more generally.

When young migrants enter a new community, are they able to acquire the community’s sociolinguistic norms? In this thesis, I examine the speech of 14 adolescents who were born in Poland, and who now attend a high school in the East End of Glasgow. I spend two years in this high school, conducting ethnographic analysis and collecting speech recordings. The linguistic behaviour of these young migrants is compared to that of a matched group of seven of their classmates who were born in Glasgow. Focusing on several sociolinguistic variables from different levels of the grammar, I use quantitative analysis to ask whether the Polish speakers are matching the local patterns of use shown by their Glaswegian peers. I use quantitative and qualitative analysis to explore why some individuals are matching these patterns to a greater extent than others. The results show that as a group, the Polish speakers come close to matching the rates of use shown by the Glaswegian speakers. They have successfully replicated some of the native constraints on the variation, although not all. They have also innovated some constraints on use which are not significant for the Glaswegian speakers. I suggest that these innovations represent a type of hypercorrection in some cases, and a lexical diffusion effect in others. I find that the individual learners are not all acquiring sociolinguistic variation to the same extent or in the same way. The individual differences observed are not explained by the length of time an individual has spent in Glasgow. Neither are they explained by the age at which an individual arrived in Glasgow, or by an individual’s gender. Instead, I suggest that friendship networks may play a role in the acquisition of more highly-constrained, ‘under-the-counter’ variables, and individual speaker agency and identity may play a role in the acquisition of the variables which are higher in speaker awareness.

This thesis uses a multimodal approach to explore how three lower primary teachers manage dialogic space in their respective classrooms during the Shared Book Approach (SBA) lessons, where they read big books to their students while holding whole class discussions. Against the backdrop of recent policies and initiatives by Ministry of Education, Singapore and the aims of the 2010 English Language Syllabus, interactions between teacher and students have received much attention. The body of work on classroom discourse in Singapore mostly focuses on speech, to the exclusion of other semiotic resources that make meaning in the classroom. This study finds that during SBA lessons in the lower primary, teachers use a variety of other semiotic resources such as gestures, space, written words and images. Through a detailed consideration of these semiotic resources, the aims of this research are to investigate how three teachers manage dialogic space during whole class discussions in SBA lessons, the issues arising from their practice and insights specifically given by the use of the Systemic Functional - Multimodal Discourse Analysis or SF-MDA (O’Halloran, 2007, 2011) adopted in this study. The employment of the SF-MDA has proven to be productive in establishing the way the teachers combine the different semiotic resources of speech and gesture to expand dialogic space by asking open-ended questions while gesturing with the supine hand position; and contracting dialogic space by, for example, asking seemingly open-ended questions while pointing to the answers in the big books. This could be seen as a scaffolding technique in reducing the options available to students. Teachers are found to be less reliant on the prone hand gesture in contracting dialogic space.

This thesis uses the tools and methods of corpus linguistics to study the process of knowledge encoding in a corpus of texts from the scientific discipline of genetics. It is argued here that the approach taken fits into the tradition of corpus-driven approaches to linguistic questions in that no assumption is made about the linguistic form that this knowledge encoding will take. Instead the study proceeds by identifying a set of keywords using the concept of lexical chains to identify items of terminology. The investigation of these uses the cluster function of WordSmith Tools (Scott 2004) and is qualitative, following Sinclair (1991; 2004) in attempting to develop a picture of the typical linguistic nature of the patterns surrounding these clusters inductively through a process of studying collocation and colligation patterns and identifying phraseology. It is argued here that such an approach is required to discover linguistic aspects of epistemic encoding that have as yet not been identified by those working in the related fields of discourse analysis or corpus linguistics.

This is the second of three modules concerned with narrative and identity in English language teaching. In Module 1, I introduced conversational narrative and examined ways in which descriptions of conversational narrative might be applicable to the development of pedagogic models for teaching English to learners in Japan. I concluded that there was a need to further explore narrative in the local context. This module does this, but takes a step back from the concern with pedagogical descriptions to consider narrative in the teaching context. It focuses on the native speaker as a central narrative concept within English language education, and explores the theoretical and practical role of the native speaker in Japan today. This module (Part 1) introduces theoretical perspectives, and considers the appropriation of the native speaker in Japanese high school textbooks. I argue that the ideological emphasis on the native speaker has been most significantly undermined by the development of English as an international language, and that the cultural discourse of the native speaker in Japanese textbooks implies a narrow brand of internationalisation that is closely related to nationalistic concerns with Japan’s status in the world today. Part 2 focuses on native English speaking teachers (NESTs) in Japan. I consider the ways in which theoretical notions of the native speaker are reflected in the experience and attitudes of NESTs.