This thesis focuses on teaching English via corpus concordancing in a Greek university and is motivated by a need to find an improved approach to teaching and learning English for Specific/Academic Purposes so that university students improve their English language skills and motivation. I assemble a corpus of thirty million words containing texts from the domains of Special Education, General Academic, and General English. I compare and contrast a corpus teaching method (CTM) to a traditional teaching method (TTM) in terms of student performance in linguistic tasks and student motivation. I particularly explore (1) the extent to which CTM is more effective than TTM with regard to student performance as measured by the overall percentage of correct responses in student performance tasks, (2) the extent to which the effectiveness of CTM with regard to student performance on performance tasks is moderated by the ability level of the student (beginner, intermediate, advanced), (3) the extent to which the effect of method on student performance is mediated by student motivation after controlling for student level, and (4) what it is that motivates university students in Greece when involved in corpus concordancing compared and contrasted with existing traditional practice in learning English. Apart from performance measurement by percentage in four linguistic tasks assigned to students in the quantitative portion of this thesis, further data collection procedures to estimate motivation were item analyses of two motivational questionnaires, one about the contrast between CTM and TTM and one about the corpus concordancing software used in this study. The qualitative portion employs the use of an open-ended survey with five questions about CTM and TTM and a corpus style analysis of the survey. The objective of the qualitative part is to determine to what extent student motivation informs students’ preferred teaching style when asked to compare CTM and TTM, and to identify motivational and demotivational factors when using the one learning method or the other. The quantitative and qualitative findings are triangulated in order to validate interpretations. Key points of convergence between the quantitative and qualitative results are identified, which allowed a description of key student benefits and difficulties when CTM is used. An analysis of benefits and difficulties constituted the basis for the development of a suggested teaching unit to be utilized by teachers of English at university level. I demonstrate that CTM is more effective than TTM in the student performance tasks and that CTM is effective across all student ability levels with the advanced students performing better than the intermediate and beginner students. I also demonstrate that the sample of students was more motivated to learn English via CTM than via TTM and that student general motivation is a mediator in terms of the relationship between the teaching method and student performance. Finally, I demonstrate important features that motivate or demotivate students when following CTM or TTM. Based on the overall findings, I recommend a CTM exemplary teaching unit to be used by teachers who teach English at tertiary level. This thesis also offers useful guidance and practice to teachers of English and students on how to make use of a corpus concordancing software program to fulfil their teaching and learning purposes, respectively.

The first part of this thesis, Between The Wars, is a novel based on the life and work of pacifist and social reformer Muriel Lester. It is an interrogation of the beliefs that inspired her, the christian pacifist movement she was a part of, and the challenge of living out the values of peace through two world wars. The novel is also an exploration of the relationship between activism and fiction, and the possibility of representing Lester's ideas in fictional form. The second part of the thesis discusses the process of writing an activist novel that seeks change and yet allows, indeed encourages, the reader to question its beliefs. Idealistic, complex, unflinching, and yet ultimately likeable, Muriel Lester is a challenge to the familiar narratives of 20th century history. Yet the closer to her activism the novel gets, the less certain it becomes, the more it casts itself into question.

Word Pairs in Late Middle English Prose investigates the use of word pairs (WPs) occurring in various English prose texts in the late Middle English period, i.e. in the fourteenth- and fifteenth-centuries. The research question addressed is a stylistic one: is there a relationship between the use of WPs and the genres of these texts? Characteristics of WPs investigated in the study include (1) the normalized frequency of WPs, (2) the etymological makeup of WPs and (3) repetition of WPs. First, the analysis of WPs in all Chaucer’s prose texts is conducted in comparison with two controls as a preliminary study to examine the different uses of WPs in each prose text and the relationship between these texts in terms of the use of WPs, and to check the validity of the methodology used in the analysis of late medieval English prose. After having ascertained the validity of the methodology, the analyses of WPs follow in a range of other texts with a wider circulation: the Mirror of the Blessed Life of Jesus Christ, Trevisa’s On the Properties of Things, the Brut or the Chronicles of England, English Wycliffite Sermons, the History of Reynard the Fox, Paris and Vienne, the Works of Sir Thomas Malory, Fortescue’s the Governance of England. Next, the analyses of WPs follow in texts with a more limited audience in mind such as An Anthology of Chancery English, and Paston Letters and Papers of the Fifteenth Century. Through the analysis of the WPs in these texts, the characteristics of WPs in each text are identified. Then characteristics in what are thought to be similar texts are compared. Statistical methods such as principal component analysis and cluster analysis are then applied to the WP data to investigate and demonstrate generic and stylistic relationships. The results of the study point to a contrast between curial style and traditional native style based on speech, the difference between which can be characterized as the abundance or dearth of WPs and the different ratio of Old French (OF)+OF vs. Old English (OE)+OE types of WPs, respectively. Certain characteristics peculiar to individual prose texts are also revealed. Lastly, the reasons for the use of WPs in different texts are considered. This study reveals the complex use of WPs in different texts, and offers a study of the subject which is more nuanced and delicate than has been previously achieved.

This study aims to explore the non-linear interactions between the self-perceived affective experiences of a group of learners and their self-evaluated performances in a foreign language (FL) classroom through the lens of Dynamic Systems Theory (DST), a theory which developed from advances in the understanding of complex and nonlinear systems in physics and mathematics. The present study bridges several disciplines, namely, mathematics, physics, psychology, applied linguistics and education, in order to avoid over-simplifying the phenomenon by focusing on fragments of reality. This study endeavours to transcend the boundaries between the above disciplines. Abstract DST concepts from mathematics and physics were initially translated into tangible FL terms acceptable to social science researchers. In addition, in order to engage with the learners, a phenomenographic approach was adopted as a qualitative method to explore the dynamism of the learners’ affective experiences and their reflections on their experiences from a second order perspective. 12 second-year Chinese students of English from a Foreign Language University in China participated in this six-month longitudinal study. Diary, Qualitative Survey, Semi-structured Interview and Class Observation were utilised for data collection. Thematic Analysis (TA) was employed to describe the phenomena at a collective level. Finally, a three-layer model, the Dynamic Model of Foreign Language Development was proposed to draw a conclusion from this study, aiming to present a novel way of understanding the distinctive features of the learners’ constant self-evaluations and their perceptions in the different contexts across time. In summary, at a collective level, the relevant attractor states from the second layer, which were determined by three main forces, namely, cognition, emotion and motivation from the first layer, contribute to making up the relevant learning experiences in the third layer. This study has contributed to the under-studied area of emotions and performance in FL learning. Several research and pedagogical implications have been identified. The results of this study contribute to a possible way to figure out terminological issues in an interdisciplinary study. The findings suggest that DST could allow a researcher to situate emotions and performances in one iterative system. DST might provide a possible logical solution to such a causality dilemma.

There has been some sociological interest in MG Rover’s decline and widespread deindustrialisation in Birmingham. However, little research has considered the proximity of Rover’s closure in 2005 to another seminal event for the city – the opening of the Bullring shopping centre in 2003. These events appear indicative of Daniel Bell’s conception of ‘postindustrialism’. This thesis uses the tradition of ‘psychogeography’ to critique postindustrialism in Birmingham, examining the city’s collective psyche from a dynamic literary perspective. In Chapter 1, Daniel Bell’s predictions (made in 1973) of the likely characteristics of a post-industrial society are outlined and measured against recent economic and social events in Birmingham. In Chapter 2, the tradition of psychogeography is critically analysed, from Situationism and Kevin Lynch’s The Image of the City in the 1960s to the contemporary works of Iain Sinclair and Rebecca Solnit. I explore the argument that the key tenet of psychogeography missing from the work of contemporary practitioners is a utopian element with which writers theorize alternative forms of the city. This chapter provides a theoretical basis for both the use of literary montage and Stirchley’s inclusion in the psychogeography. Consequently, Chapters 3, 4 and 5 constitute the psychogeography itself, moving through three key geographical areas. These chapters offer a creative-critical representation of Birmingham in montage form, weaving fragments of narration with literary, theoretical and sociological works and considering the impacts of technology, industry and post-industrial urbanism on the city’s landscape and psyche. The discussion of Raymond Williams’s ‘mobile privatisation’ in Longbridge provides a catalyst for the consideration, in the final chapter, of a porous but socially divisive architecture in the Bullring. As the psychogeography progresses, the suburb of Stirchley and the Bullring market-area both emerge as contested spaces and, simultaneously, blueprints for an alternative form of the city. This thesis celebrates the variety, incoherence and inclusiveness of both spaces.

Idioms, as highly familiar word combinations, are processed quickly by native speakers, but are problematic for non-native speakers even at high levels of proficiency. In this thesis I explore the representation of idioms in the monolingual and bilingual lexicons. In a series of studies I investigate how native and non-native speakers of English process English idioms and idioms translated from another language. In Study 1 I used a lexical decision task to test how much an expected word is primed following the first part of an idiom, e.g. on the edge of your… seat. English native speakers and Chinese-English bilinguals were tested using English idioms and translations of Chinese idioms (e.g. draw a snake and add… feet). In Study 2 I presented the same materials in short passages to allow for more natural presentation and used eye-tracking to investigate the reading patterns for all items. I also compared figurative and literal uses of the same items to see how easily non-native speakers were able to process non-compositional meaning in the L2. In Study 3 I used the same methodology (eye-tracking of idioms used in short sentence contexts) with a higher proficiency group (Swedish-English bilinguals), with much shorter, less predictable idioms (e.g. break the ice/bryta isen) and included a set of idioms that exist in both L1 and L2. All three studies point to the same conclusion: that even in an unfamiliar translated form, the expected lexical combination was facilitated (idioms showed faster processing than control phrases), but only the highest proficiency participants also showed evidence that they were able to process the figurative meanings without disruption. Congruent items show no additional advantage, hence it is clearly L1 knowledge of what words ‘go together’ that drives the effect in translation. In Study 4 I extended this by contrasting idioms with other types of formulaic phrase: literal binomials (king and queen) and collocations (abject poverty). All types showed faster reading compared to equally plausible control phrases. I then used formulaic component words in separated contexts to see whether any lexical priming effects are observed when the formulaic frame is compromised. Only idioms showed evidence of a formulaic advantage in this condition, while binomials showed evidence of semantic priming and collocations showed evidence of disruption. Importantly, different factors relevant to each formulaic type show an effect on how they are processed, e.g. idioms were driven by predictability, while binomials were driven more by the strength of semantic association between component words. The results overall provide a valuable new perspective on how formulaic units are represented in the mental lexicon. The fact that faster processing is seen for translated forms shows that idioms are not processed as unanalysed whole units, since L1 influence must be contingent on the individual words activating translation equivalent forms. This also shows that non-native speakers do not show fundamentally different processing in their L2 than native speakers, and ‘known’ word combinations are processed quickly regardless of the language of presentation. Compared to idioms, other formulaic types also show fast processing in canonical forms, but are more variable in whether or not the component words also show lexical priming in non-formulaic contexts. Formulaicity therefore exists at multiple levels of representation, encompassing lexical, structural and conceptual properties of word combinations.

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This thesis investigates the Scandinavian contribution to medieval microtoponymic vocabulary in two areas of northwest England, Wirral, part of the historic county of Cheshire in the north-west Midlands, and an area of the county of Cumbria, the West Ward of Westmorland Barony. It is shown that there was far greater Scandinavian linguistic influence on the medieval microtoponymy of the West Ward than on the medieval microtoponymy of Wirral. This thesis also assesses what conclusions can be drawn from the use of Scandinavian derived place name elements in microtoponyms. Scandinavian influence on microtoponymy has previously been interpreted, at one extreme, as evidence for Scandinavian settlement, and, at the other extreme, only as reflecting widespread Scandinavian influence on the English language and English naming practices. The relationship between Scandinavian settlement and Scandinavian influence on naming micropotonymy is explored by considering the microtoponymic evidence in the light of evidence illuminating the circumstances of Scandinavian settlement in the case-study areas, and by considering the evidence from the case-study areas within the wider context of Scandinavian influence on English naming practices. The substantial Scandinavian substantial influence on major place names in both areas confirms that Scandinavian had been spoken in Wirral and the West Ward. However, the Scandinavian contribution to toponymic vocabulary as recorded in the late medieval period was very different in the two areas, hinting at the indirectness of the link between Scandinavian settlement and influence on later microtoponymy. Indeed, detailed consideration of the use of individual Scandinavian-derived place name elements at a national level indicates that the areas over which some Scandinavian-derived place-name elements were used increased during the Middle English period. The factors underlying the usage of Scandinavian derived toponymic vocabulary in the late-medieval period are therefore more varied than has sometimes been acknowledged.

This thesis seeks to explore textually instantiated oppositions and their contribution to the construction of ‘us’ and ‘them’ in specific news texts. The data consists of reports of two major protest marches taken from news articles in UK national daily newspapers. The aim of the thesis is to review and contribute to the development of existing theories of oppositions (often known as ‘antonyms’), in order to investigate the potential effects of their systematic usage in news texts and add an additional method of analysis to the linguistic toolkit utilised by critical discourse analysts. The thesis reviews a number of traditional theories of opposition and questions the assumption that oppositions are mainly lexical phenomena i.e. that only those codified in lexical authorities such as thesauruses can be classed as true opposites. The hypothesis draws on Murphy (2003) to argue that opposition is primarily conceptual, evidence being that new ones can be derived from principles on which opposition is based. The dialectic between ‘canonical’ and ‘noncanonical’ oppositions allows addressees to process and understand a potentially infinite number of new oppositions via cognitive reference to existing ones. Fundamental to the discovery of co-occurring textually-constructed oppositions are the syntactic frames commonly used to house canonical oppositions, which, this thesis argues, can trigger new instances of oppositions when used in these frames. I conduct a detailed qualitative analysis of textually constructed oppositions in three news articles, and show how they are used by journalists to positively and negatively represent groups and individuals as mutually exclusive binaries, in order to perpetuate a particular ideological point of view. The final section is an examination of how critical discourse analysis studies into the construction of ‘us’ and ‘them’ in news texts can be enhanced by a consideration of constructed oppositions like those explored in the thesis.