The present research attempts to develop a general model of the diffusion of Western loanwords in contemporary Japanese within the variationist framework. It describes and predicts, based on empirical evidence from apparent- and real-time data, the elaborate process of changes in favor of loanwords as opposed to their existing native equivalents. First, people's self-reporting shows a consistent tendency for a younger generation to show a stronger preference for loanwords than an elder one. This indicates changes in favor of loanwords are in progress in apparent time (Chapter 4). Second, the above-mentioned age gradient is attested to by corpus-based data. It also reveals that the occurrence of loanwords is accounted for multi-dimensionally by a wider range of language-external factors such as generation, education, register and style (Chapter 5). Third, an in-depth study of the individual loanword keesu (< case) reveals that not only external factors but also internal ones, e.g., usage and collocation of the word, have impacts on its occurrence (Chapter 6). Fourth, an investigation of the loanword sapooto (< support) shows that a stylistic variable comes into play in its diffusion in interaction with an educational variable. The loanword is disfavored when the speech setting shifts to formal in particular by the most educated speakers (Chapter 7). Fifth, a real-time approach to loanword adoption verified that individuals can change their language attitude or behavior throughout their lifetime. It highlights importance of longitudinal observation of the phenomenon in making a more accurate prediction of change (Chapter 8). The present research confirms that the occurrence of loan variants is bound by various social and linguistic contexts. The above empirical findings contribute to the field of variationist study by opening up the possibility of analyzing linguistic variation in Japanese at the lexical level.

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The Glossary is a fictocritical work which accompanies the novel, New Moon Through Glass, written for my doctorate that encorporates fiction, poetry, analytic and critical text, and which ‘writes back’ to the novel without the interpretive gesture and in doing so interrogates the art of fiction via a fictocritical critique. The generic glossary (a collection of glosses) encapsulates the ‘interpretive gesture’ par excellence — the hermeneutical exercise that criticism’s role has widely been thought to be. Its earliest, medieval form as a commentary (or series of commentaries), translation or exegesis in the margins of or between the lines of a text, reiterates the glossary’s ostensible purpose to explicate rather than create ‘meaning’. As a fictocritical work, The Glossary therefore both interrupts the monolithic architecture of the text through the techniques of the cut and the stitch, and also, by ‘reading between the lines’ of the novel, provides alternative readings; a space for other voices, other texts. In the process the project repositions the glossary before the novel (a reversal of the usual order) inciting a series of readings and re-readings which establish a practice of critical fictionalising and the fictionalising of the critical and an incitement to read in this manner. In the performance, The Glossary ventures to open this Pandora’s Box and in the process reflects on what, as a practitioner, writing is, what reading is, and what is critical practice and what creative. The Glossary is a performance of a distinction put by Bathes as a ‘thinking through’ rather than ‘a residue of critical thought’ (1985: 284) and therefore demands to be read as a fictocritical The Glossary was arrived at after much research and experimentation in my fiction writing practice with footnotes, asides and summarizing (‘the story so far’ style) prefaces or segues and above all definitions, a fascination which might be summarised by the distinction that Charlotte Brontë drew between writing that was ‘real’ and writing that was ‘true’. Fiction often requires realism in order to ring true, and yet the elements of language that give it force owe nothing to realism — its power lies in its imagery, its symmetry, its poetry all of which foreground textuality and intertextuality in a manner congruent with the fictocritical project. The Glossary, ostensibly there to confirm and stabilise knowledge, language and reading practices, shows, by fictionalising the critical, the dependent ordering and silences through the art of character in this knowledge architecture. Far from keeping an ‘objective’ distance, The Glossary generates a parallel text to the novel in which the voice of the author ‘speaks’, and in doing so has much to say, by its multi-vocal presence, about authorial intentions (and anxieties), slippages, ruptures and textual transparencies, opacities and excess; about the ways in which writing is both knowledge and being, knowing and making. The Glossary grew (rhizomically though not randomly) from textual asides, after thoughts and back stories, parallel and divergent interests, arguments, lyricisms, associations, allusions and theories. Eventually The Glossary became a piece of writing performing what could not ‘make it’ into the work of fiction. That a glossary is made up of ����entries���� proved an enlivening form, which generated a different kind of writing practice and a different kind of writing, perhaps not dissimilar to a web log. In making this comparison I am referencing Kerryn Goldsworthy’s comments that ‘blogging’, as ‘dynamic thinking-in-action’, sets its form apart from traditional writing and ‘creates a shift away from the consumer-producer model’ by destabilising the notion of a one-way transaction, ‘active writer producer to passive reader-consumer’. Each entry in The Glossary is a jumping off point for text to grow either from the point-of-view of the writer or reader, and each item simultaneously encourages a non-linear reading with regard to itself out of which possibilities are generated — as a body of text; the ‘self’ to which it constantly refers — and the novel it appends. The Glossary allows space for ‘undisicplined’ writing which does not conform to the teleological narrative of the thriller genre and in doing so, offers a radically democratic opportunity for the reader (who along with the writer also composes the story) to join in the process and the practice and understand how in ‘working through’ any text we are subconsciously glossing and deducing as we go. Some entries in The Glossary relate to specifics in the novel. Others to novels which haunt the text or other texts dreamed of, wished for or forgotten. Many of the subjects of The Glossary are familiar terms in literary and critical discourse examined in the process of writing. Still others relate to identity and to doubling, as a fictional device, but also as textual possibility. The counterpoint between the two texts — glossary and novel — holds other dialogues and polylogues: the intimate linkage between love and murder or desire and violence; disappearances — both textual and familial; childhood, memory and, motherhood; voice, reading, writing- (as well as reading-)blocks; the flâneur; psychoanalysis and dreams; collage; and the house as a metaphor for the body or the text. Certainly The Glossary presents an occasion for writing, an exercise, an exegesis and, where necessary, an excuse: ‘Only paper offers the tactile complexities of the origami life, the papier mache existence. (The Glossary p. 84) / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

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The researcher’s decision to study the labelling of lexical items in dictionaries was prompted by the frustration experienced with subjective labelling in Afrikaans and English dictionaries. Some lexicographers rely too much on their subjective judgement when it comes to labelling lexical items. The problem with this is that the different dictionaries often label the same word differently or that words in the same dictionary which should get the same label are labelled differently. The question arose as to what exactly constitutes the correct handling of labels, especially with regard to Xhosa dictionaries. The search for an answer to achieve this aim dictated the necessity to examine the essence of the concept “label” in order to establish criteria for evaluating the effective usage of labels, because as Harteveld (1993:143) stated: “…the incorrect treatment of labels or the lack thereof can have important implications for a dictionary”. Since the hypothesis of this study is that it is possible to use labels objectively and correctly it is therefore possible to establish criteria that can be used to achieve this end. A literature review was undertaken to identify criteria for the handling of labels. Fieldwork with the aid of a questionnaire was conducted to supplement the establishment of such criteria. A number of criteria for handling labels was determined. Each criterion was discussed and its implementation was practically demonstrated by means of exemplars.

L'invasion et la colonisation de la Normandie par les vikings scandinaves introduisirent en frangais plusieurs mots d'origine noroise. Cette étude examine l'étymologie de certains mots réputés d'être de cette origine. II y a particulièrement deux catégories de mots qui ont été considerees. Premièrement il s'agit de termes qui ont un rapport, quelconque à la mer, c'est-à-dire la mer elle-même, certains types d'embarcation, certaines parties du gréage, la navigation, des poissons et la pêche. Chapître II traite de ces mots. Deuxièmement il est question de noms de lieux en Normandie. Le troisième chapître considère ces noms de lieux. II y en a deux groupes, d'abord des noms comportant un nom topographique, et puis des noms composés d'un nom d'homme avec la terminaison -ville. La méthode employée est celle d'examiner les œuvres des experts sur le sujet, et de comparer leurs opinions et leurs conslusions à l'égard des étymologies et des origines; et deuxièmement d'établir le rapport, s'il y a lieu, entre le terme en discussion et le scandinave moderne, surtout le norvégien actuel. Deux résultats de cette examination sont à noter. D'abord on est frappé par le rapport étroit et la similarité remarquable entre le franqais (le normand) et le norvégien moderne. II semble qu'il y ait là un champ de recherche peu explorè. Deuxièmement on trouve souvent un assez grand désaccord parmi les experts. Ce désaccord fait ressortir le besoin de plus amples études. / Arts, Faculty of / French, Hispanic, and Italian Studies, Department of / Graduate

Written broadly within a Lexical Functional Grammar Framework, this thesis provides a descriptive and theoretical account of definiteness in Insular Scandinavian from a synchronic and diachronic perspective. Providing evidence from Ancient Germanic to Old Norse to Modern Faroese, it is argued that the weak feature on the adjective has an important part to play in the historical narrative of definiteness marking in Faroese, alongside more traditional elements like the bound and free definite articles and demonstratives. Each of the features is read within the context of its nominal syntax and it is observed that there are recurrent pathways of change which each time result in the growth of syntactic structure and the redistribution of features. One of my principal findings for the Old Norse period was that the noun phrase had developed a FOC slot to the left edge of phrase. It is this focus domain which helps to explain the distribution of definiteness markers and which provides an account for the grammaticalization of the free and bound marker hinn. It is also this focus domain which eventually leads to the development of dedicated definite slots in the prenominal space and eventually to functional DP projection in Modern Faroese. This thesis provides new and detailed descriptive data on the definite noun phrase in Modern Faroese, a lesser studied Insular Scandinavian language. Since Faroese is widely reported to have ‘lost’ the genitive case in recent times, the above changes are read against a background of morphosyntactic change. A key finding of the thesis for the Modern language is that Faroese is becoming increasingly reliant on analytic marking, despite the fact that is is still a highly inflected language. It is this reliance on syntax which has rendered the genitive redundant, not, as has been suggested, the ‘loss’ of case which has led to the development of periphrastic alternatives.