The present thesis is devoted to the analysis of how cognates are processed and represented in the minds of Japanese-English bilinguals. Cognates are an interesting and important category of words in languages as they are distinguished by their similarity across languages, which includes both formal and semantic features. This thesis presents the most comprehensive description and analysis of Japanese-English cognates and how they are processed and represented in the minds of bilinguals. A large number of rating and norming data are presented, which will be of use to researchers in the field of bilingualism who are interested in languages that differ in script, such as Japanese and English. Utilising measures of formal (phonological) and semantic cross-linguistic similarity derived from bilinguals’ ratings, the present thesis presents evidence that cross-linguistic similarity impacts bilingual processing and representation in a variety of tasks, but is modulated by task type and language dominance. The findings of the present study complement previous research, which has often focused on languages that share script (e.g., Dutch-English), while advancing the use of continuous measures of formal and semantic similarity. Such measures are argued to be more appropriate in terms of current cognitive models of bilingual processing and representation. Following a review of previously documented cognitive models, the results are interpreted in terms of the most relevant models that address the issues of cross-linguistic similarity and language proficiency/dominance. The results are important for cognitive science, psycholinguistics and bilingual studies and may also feed into applied linguistics in terms of the potential implications for language learning and teaching.

Much has been claimed recently for the role of idiomaticity in L1 acquisition and fluency and many of these insights have been applied, in my view, uncritically in many cases, to the context of L2 use. Until recently, very little attempt was made to test out the applicability of these insights to English as a Lingua Franca by examining naturally-occurring L2 discourse. This thesis sets out to explore the reasons why even successful L2-users may find the phenomenon of idiomaticity difficult. It investigates the apparent paradox between idiomaticity in L1 use and L2 use, whereby for the L1-user, idiomaticity, in all its guises, makes for ease of processing and the promotion of fluency while in L2 use it seems, in some of its manifestations at least, to be error- prone and elusive. Drawing on an original corpus of spoken English as a Lingua Franca, I apply a combination of corpus techniques and techniques of discourse analysis within a sociocultural framework in order to identify the underlying factors that differentiate L1 and L2 idiomaticity. I illustrate the argument by looking at two different manifestations of idiomaticity: ‘minimal’ units of idiomaticity (two word phrases) and more traditional ‘colourful’ idioms. The results suggest that L2-users avoid or have difficulty with ‘native-like’ idiomaticity because L1 idiomaticity involves more than formulaic sequences of greater or lesser semantic opacity; it is a more extended and diffuse phenomenon that generates subtle webs of semantic, pragmatic and discourse prosodies. It is through these situated webs of signification that L1-users achieve fluency and the promotion of self rather than in the manipulation of isolated idiomatic units in vacuo. Note: When I use the terms ‘native’ and ‘non-native’ I put them in inverted commas to indicate to the reader that I do not subscribe to the deficit view of L2 use that these terms are often associated with. My preferred terms are ‘L1-user’ and ‘L2-user’ (Cook, 2002).

This thesis attempts to do three things. Firstly, it attempts to bring a new contribution to knowledge about fixed idiomatic expressions in English, by demonstrating that the overall meaning of such expressions need not always be conveyed by the presence of lexical words. Linguistic observation of natural and authentic language use has shown the existence of fixed idiomatic expressions consisting solely of grammatical words and possessing a particular overall meaning. Some of these expressions commonly found in everyday informal communication (written and spoken) are "this and/or that", "either or ", "round and round ", "ups and downs ", "on and off', etc. Secondly, the thesis will seek to illustrate through descriptive analysis that fixed expressions consisting solely of grammatical words can be called "units of meaning", using Sinclair's (1991a) position regarding form and meaning. Thus, a part of the thesis will be devoted to investigating the lexico-grammatical behaviour of such expressions. The analysis focuses solely on prepositional clusters, whose frequent usage in informal spoken and written communication makes them suitable for investigation. These prepositional clusters are composed of prepositions or words that can function as prepositions, and formed as a result of the common syntactic patterns in which they occur. Besides analysing cluster patterns that are composed solely of prepositions or words that can function as prepositions, other clusters which are composed of prepositions with adjectives/adverbs and nouns are included in the investigation, for purposes of comparison. Hence, the prepositional cluster patterns analysed in this study are: a) Prep+and+Prep (egs. ins and outs, up and down), b) Prep+Prep (egs. roundabout, upside down, inside out), c) Prep+Adv/Adj (egs. at most, at least), d) Adj/Adv+Prep (egs. excited about, worried about, angry about), e) Noun+ Prep (egs. Reason for, request for, excuse for) and f) Prep+Noun (egs. by mistake, by chance, by coincidence). In examining the lexico-grammatical behaviour of prepositional cluster patterns, I have applied linguistic principles from both Corpus Analysis and Cognitive Semantics. This approach, which combines two fields of linguistics, lends more depth to the analysis. While principles of Corpus Analysis are useful in determining common meaning usages and grammatical functions of prepositional clusters, principles of Cognitive Semantics are able to extend the interpretation of the meaning usages, with regard to metaphoricity. Consequently, I will utilise the principles in both fields to suggest a semantic representation of all the prepositional clusters analysed in the study, based on a superordinate classification rather than on a network one. The third and final part of the thesis seeks to apply the lexicogrammatical findings and the linguistic principles used in the study to pedagogy. More specifically, these findings, together with the linguistic principles of Corpus Analysis and Cognitive Semantics, have been utilised to construct activities which demonstrate a particular ELT methodology, which I have termed Investigative-Oriented Learning (IOL). IOL is meant to address the limitation of Communicative Teaching in developing investigative questioning in language learners. The aim of IOL thus is to empower learners with skills of Conscious Investigation which may enable them to be sensitive to patterns of language, and to their idiomatic and metaphorical meanings and grammatical functions. Prepositional clusters, which illustrate idiomaticity and metaphoricity in authentic language use, have been used as an example of language patterns to illustrate the methodology behind IOL.

This mixed-methods investigation reports on the under-researched issue of silence within Japanese university second language (L2) classrooms. An extensive, multi-site study using a structured observation methodology was employed to investigate the classroom behaviour of over 900 language learners across nine universities in Japan. To effectively measure the extent of macro-level silence within their classrooms, an original observation instrument called the Classroom Oral Participation Scheme (COPS) was specially developed for the task. A total of 48 hours of data was collected using a minute-by-minute sampling strategy which resulted in some startling results. Learners were found to be responsible for less than one percent of initiated talk within their classes, while over a fifth of total class time observed was characterised by no oral participation by any participants. Complementing the COPS' quantitative evidence of a robust national trend of silence in Japan's universities, a parallel qualitative phase of the investigation gave students a voice about their silences by drawing on over seventy-thousand words of transcribed data collected during a series of semi-structured interviews. This phase of the research provided a valuable individual-level analysis of learners' fundamental beliefs about and personal experiences of not speaking in L2 educational contexts. The final phase of the project adopted an event-specific focus on classroom silence by utilising a stimulated recall methodology to uncover what students were actually thinking and feeling whilst silent episodes were in progress during lessons. Using Dynamic Systems Theory (DST) as its conceptual background, the investigation moves away from reductionist, single-cause explanations for learner reticence to suggest that silence actually emerges through multiple, concurrent routes. These routes (termed attractors in DST) are so abundant, and appear to be so well supported both educationally and culturally in the Japanese context, that silence has fossilised into a semi-permanent attractor state within university language classrooms.

This thesis is a corpus-based investigation from a pragmatic perspective or the phenomenon of idiomatic creativity. The ultimate aim of the thesis is to provide comprehensive empirical evidence of the intertwining relationships between different factors of idiomatic creativity and the effects of such relationships on the reassessment of the determinants of idiomatic creativity in context-specific communicative events. It has often been suggested in the psycholinguistics tradition that the semantic transparency of some idioms facilitates the creative manipulations of such idioms in discourse, while the lack thereof hinders creativity in some others. In other words, the internal characteristics of idioms, including compositionality, analysability and motivation, which contribute towards transparency, arc postulated to determine idiomatic creativity. While theoretical arguments and illustrative examples appear to support such a hypothesis, empirical validation of the hypothesis using large bodies of authentic data is still required for it to gain acceptance in the linguistic community. In the first half of the thesis, therefore, quantitative analyses of corpus data and statistical tests arc carried out to empirically validate the psycho-linguistic hypothesis concerning the semantic determinants of idiomatic creativity. It is found in the analyses and tests that there are significant trends in the data that point towards the prevalence or transparent idioms over opaque ones in terms of both the range and the frequency of their creative manifestations in authentic English discourse. In the second half of the thesis, with a view to flesh out the otherwise decontextualised and superficial results from such quantitative analyses, qualitative analyses of individual instances of idiom variants in the data are carried out, thus elaborating on the varying degrees or importance of the underlying factors of idiomatic creativity and, notably, their interaction with one another in specific contexts. The results suggest that, together with idioms' semantic characteristics, external factors, including context, cognitive constraints and phraseological constraints, also contribute to idiomatic creativity. It is further revealed that the roles of the facilitating and constraining factors of idiomatic creativity vary according to the particular context-specific types of variant, in which context has the overarching power to overrule certain constraints as well as to disambiguate unusual creative uses. As such, the true functional profile of idiomatic creativity is argued to be best described and predicted in relation to context. A context-based model of idiomatic creativity in authentic English discourse is therefore proposed in this thesis in the hope that it will contribute to the existing literature on idiomatic creativity and offer a better understanding of the possibilities and constraints on the phenomenon in real life discourse.

Speechreading is a complex skill affected by both the observer's method of extracting visual speech information and talker-specific variation in speech production. This thesis focuses upon accent, a factor that can influence both an observer's viewing strategy and talker speechreadability. Auditory research demonstrates that an unfamiliar accent reduces speech intelligibility. The primary aim here was to determine whether accent type, familiarity or variation would alter visual speech intelligibility with consequential effects upon speechreading performance. Experiments 1 and 2 considered visual discrimination of native and non-native accented speech and the influence of non-native accent upon speechreading performance. Results indicated that observers were able to utilise visual cues for discrimination and were significantly poorer at speechreading a non-native accent. Experiments 3, 4 and 5 examined the influence of regional accent on speechreading performance. Results indicated that visual speech performance was significantly worse for Glaswegian-accented talkers than for talkers with a Nottingham accent. However, no clear advantage for accent familiarity was found. Experiment 6 examined the influence of accent type and talker variability upon speechreading performance. Accent type was consistently the dominant influence upon speechreading performance, above familiarity and variation. Experiments 7, 8, 9 and 10 examined the influence of exposure, context and repetition upon the effects of a Glaswegian accent. Here, the effect of the Glaswegian accent on talker speechreadability was reduced by context and repetition, but not removed entirely. In conclusion, while visual accent type mostly determines visual speech intelligibility, accent familiarity mostly determines auditory speech perception. Although spoken accent effects can be quickly reduced through exposure, no such effect was found here in the visual modality. Both context and repetition were necessary to improve the intelligibility of accented speech. This indicates a potential difference in the processing of accented speech across the two modalities and has implications for speechreading training.

This thesis attempts to reinterpret language learning motivation through a consideration of the possibilities of applying theories of the self to L2 motivation theory. There were two overriding aims guiding my research; firstly to empirically test theoretical proposals suggesting that the concept of an ideal L2 self may represent a more effective base for understanding L2 motivation, and secondly to explore the possibilities suggested by this approach within the context of the Japanese English learning context. The study was designed using a mixed methods approach, with a primary quantitative research instrument being supported by secondary qualitative data. The main quantitative instrument was a large-scale (n= 2,397) nationwide attitudinal questionnaire. The qualitative data was collected from three sets of semi-structured interviews with a total of 23 learners of English in Japan. Analysis of the quantitative data provided convincing support for claims that the ideal L2 self represents a viable and improved base from which to understand the motivation to learn English. The data showed the ideal L2 self to be the central element of the learner's sense of emotional identification with the values associated with a language and its speakers and to be one of the principal variables affecting efforts to learn. The research also found that in the Japanese English learning context, a significant factor in the construction of learners' ideal L2 self beliefs and motivated behaviour was perceived conflicts between national identity beliefs and English abilities; conflicts which manifested themselves in the provision of English education and learners' immediate social relationships.

This longitudinal qualitative study concerns the investigation of the impact of a professional development (PD) programme conducted at an English department in Thailand. The PD programme was carried out as a series of nine in-service workshops with five non-native English as a Foreign Language (EFL) teachers in the English Department. The workshops aimed to provide these teachers with theoretical and practical understanding of performance-based language assessment with a focus on the rating process. In the investigation of the impact of the PD on these teachers, individual and focus group interviews were used as the research methods. From the analysis of the data, guided by Grounded Theory, the findings show that the PD programme had a positive impact on the teachers who participated in the workshops. These teachers have become aware of their rating styles, established their own consistent rating styles, become confident when rating students’ performances, become critical to the assessment practices, realised roles of teachers in assessment, and recognised possibilities of changes in assessment. In other words, they have become more self-consistent when rating their students’ performances and they have become more critical to the assessment being used in the department. The insights gained from this research pose the implications for professional development, indigenous rating criteria and collaborative action research.

The research described in this thesis reports on a 10-month quantitative/qualitative classroom-based study, carried out at a Japanese university, investigating the potential of authentic materials to develop learners’ communicative competence. It was hypothesised that the ‘richer’ input provided by authentic materials, combined with appropriate awareness-raising activities, would be better able to develop a range of communicative competencies in learners (linguistic, pragmalinguistic, sociopragmatic, strategic and discourse competences). Ninety-two 2nd year English major students, of similar proficiency levels, were assigned to either a control or experimental group for the period of the trial. The control group received input from two textbooks commonly used in Japanese universities, while the experimental group received input from authentic materials (films, documentaries, ‘reality shows’, TV comedies, web-based sources, home-produced video of native speakers, songs, novels and newspaper articles), designed to allow students to ‘notice’ features of the discourse which could help them develop some aspect of their communicative competence. The hypothesis was tested with a batch of eight pre/postcourse measures, designed to tap into different aspects of learners’ communicative competence or language skills: a) Listening; b) Pronunciation; c) ‘C’-Test; d) Grammar; e) Vocabulary; f) Discourse completion task (DCT); g) IELTS oral interview; h) Student-student role-play. These were supported with qualitative results from learners’ diaries, case-study interviews with subjects from both groups and transcripts of classroom interaction. Univariate analysis of the pre/post-course tests, using ANCOVA, indicated statistically significant differences between the two treatment groups, with the experimental group out-performing the control group in five of the eight communicative competence measures. The qualitative results of the trial helped to account for these differences in performance, suggesting that the authentic materials, and their associated tasks, allowed learners to notice a wider range of discourse features than those generally available in textbook input. They also indicated a clear preference in the experimental group for authentic materials over textbooks, suggesting that learners found them more interesting, varied and challenging, and better able to meet their perceived future language needs. Finally, the qualitative results demonstrated that, for learners, social goals often override instructional goals in the classroom, suggesting that classroom-based research benefits from both an emic and etic perspective in order to fully account for results.

This study explores the potential of teaching intercultural competence in foreign language courses through the example of a pedagogical experience in a higher education institution. Language research increasingly acknowledges the intercultural dimension of foreign language education and foreign language teachers’ social and moral responsibilities. Successful intercultural interactions presuppose unprejudiced attitudes, hence learners’ intercultural competence: tolerance and understanding of other cultures as well as cultural self-awareness. Intercultural communicative competence can therefore be considered as one of the central aims of foreign language education so that learners can successfully communicate with people from different linguistic and cultural worlds. However, there have been few empirical studies which illustrate intercultural competence with a view towards assisting its integration into classrooms. The main purpose of this investigation is the increased understanding of my practice in order to reconceptualise it as one of a social justice educator, which entails the construction of an understanding of intercultural competence teaching and learning in the foreign language classroom. The study incorporates insights from critical pedagogy, critical multiculturalism, and intercultural competence theories and examines the ways in which the research process has influenced and reshaped my practice, paving the way forward to further improvements for the future. During a classroom-based study over two academic semesters, I created an intercultural syllabus for my teaching of an English writing course which aimed to facilitate new understandings and insights around cultural diversity and contribute to learners’ responsible citizenship in a democratic society. Participants included all students who were enrolled in these two university classes. Using an action inquiry methodology, the project was a study of my educational practice which addressed five broad research questions. Qualitative data collection and analysis endeavoured to answer these questions by investigating student perceptions of cultural diversity and assessing their response to the syllabus; hence by focusing on the enhancement of students’ intercultural competence, the study sought to identify successful strategies for teaching intercultural competence. Data collection methods included student interviews, student essays, and my reflective diary. Findings reveal that most learners construct cultural differences as problematic, resort to negative stereotyping, and reproduce essentialised images of the self and of otherness; however, analysis also surfaced a more fluid and ambiguous understanding which portrays cultural others in more positive ways. Additionally, greater and deeper student understanding of intercultural issues is evidenced with reflection on the concept of culture and on migration, increased cultural self-awareness, expression of empathy and solidarity, acknowledgement of heterogeneity within national cultures, and awareness that insufficient knowledge of cultural groups may lead to misconceptions. The identification of ineffective strategies has assisted me in revising the intervention, while the self-reflective process brought to light my own biases towards otherness, assumptions which inform my practice, and ethical dilemmas involved in transformative teaching. Implications include the significance of affective learning, of student agency in the knowledge production process, and the connection of the educational experience to their lives. They point to the empowering experience for teachers of shaping the curriculum and living out their values in their practice but also to the challenges involved in transformative practices, teaching values, and assessing intercultural competence.