One of the main advantages of cognitive linguistics (and in particular Cognitive Grammar) over other approaches to the study of language structure is the fact that every descriptive construct is defined in psychological terms. This means, ideally, that any cognitive linguistic description of a word or grammatical construction constitutes a hypothesis about the mental representation of that structure. It should thus be possible to verify such descriptions, or to decide between competing analyses of a phenomenon, by experimentally testing the hypotheses that they entail. Such tests have been rare, however, due to the difficulty of operationalising many of the semantic notions used in Cognitive Grammar. The present thesis reports on attempts to operationalise and test (using questionnaires, production tasks, and reaction time measurements) four descriptive claims formulated in the framework of Cognitive Grammar: that finite complementation constructions are headed by the complement-taking predicate; that the first object in a three-argument clause is more “figure-like” than the second object; that impersonal there in an existential clause refers to the locative scene as a whole; and that non-finite clauses encourage the hearer to imagine the described event as a single gestalt, whereas finite clauses encourage them to imagine it unfolding over time. These grammatical analyses crucially involve the notions of “profiling”, “focal prominence”, and “mode of scanning”, which are central to Cognitive Grammar. None of the experiments conducted produced conclusive results, leaving open the question of whether the descriptive constructs used in the analyses are really necessary. Accordingly, the second part of the thesis presents an attempt to reconceptualise Cognitive Grammar using only descriptive constructs that are known to be easily operationalisable; in particular, giving prominence to notions from discourse pragmatics and prosodic phonology.

This thesis explores the influence of Henri Bergson’s philosophy on middlebrow literature between 1899 and 1939. In doing so it engages with the work of Joseph Conrad, Algernon Blackwood and John Buchan as well as critics John Mullarkey, Suzanne Guerlac, Michael Vaughan and Michael Kolkman who, over the past three decades, have instigated a significant interdisciplinary revival and reassessment of Bergson’s work. Specifically, this study builds on, yet also extends, the work of literary critics like Paul Douglass, Hillary Fink, Mary Ann Gillies and S.E. Gontarski who since the 1990s have produced extensive studies exploring the impact of Bergson’s philosophy on modernism. While each of these studies confirm the considerable impact Bergson wrought on the culture and literature of this period, each limit their focus to canonical ‘highbrow’ modernist writers. Given the pervasive popularity of Bergson at this juncture, and following the spirit of recent calls in modernist studies for more inclusive, ‘flexible and perspicuous’ interpretations of the period’s literature, this project aims to extend the parameters of existing research to encompass early twentieth century ‘middlebrow’ fiction in the belief that Bergson represents a significant cultural and ideological bridge between these, too often, polarised literary streams. As such, this study expands on the work of scholars like Nicola Humble, Kate Macdonald, Erica Brown and Mary Grover who, to borrow Humble’s term, have sought to ‘rehabilitate’ and reassess critical perceptions of the early twentieth century’s ‘middlebrow’ writing. Following a detailed explanation of Bergson’s philosophy, its place in early twentieth century British culture and its pertinence to literary studies today, I will move on to discuss key works by Joseph Conrad, Algernon Blackwood, Arthur Machen and John Buchan in relation to Bergson’s philosophy, placing particular focus on their more mystical aspects and thematic, structural applications. Such an investigation does not aim to negate the unique contribution Bergson made to inspiring, elucidating and supporting the formal innovations of modernism but hopes to emphasise the fact that his ideas resounded far beyond this context, capturing the attention of an unexpectedly broad spectrum of society in often unexpected, unconventional and as yet, under-explored ways.

This thesis demonstrates how literary and medical authors explored changing concepts of childbirth and reproductive medicine between the years 1737 and 1798. Considerable changes took place during this period that transformed birth from a social rite of passage into a medical event. Questions such as who and what was involved in reproduction, how childbirth was managed by individuals and communities, as well as how common understanding about these matters were reached, were brought to the fore in a way that they had never before been raised. A key means by which these ideas were communicated was through the rapidly developing print market with its overlapping interests in literature and medicine. Scholarship of medical humanities and medical history has grown exponentially in the last few decades, including that relating to the history of midwifery and the professionalization of what would become obstetric discourse, yet no study has brought together the theme of reproduction with trends in medical and literary publishing directly. The methodology employed here favours neither the literary nor historical, nor the feminist over the biographical, but rather brings these approaches together, drawing on medical theory of the period, trends in publishing, the rise of both women’s writing and the novel, as the texts considered require. The thesis widens the source pool consulted for purposes of developing a detailed understanding of the history of reproductive medicine. In doing so, the materials analysed reveal that both lay and professional authors found a range of creative ways of relating to changes in the medical management of pregnancy and childbirth, using personal stories and broader medical information, some of this illicit.

This study examines Lawrence's views of nature and their relations to perspectives drawn from Oriental traditions and philosophies. Many of Lawrence's non-Christian perspectives concerning the universe and man's relationship with nature bear strong affinities with Eastern thought systems, particularly his understanding of such fundamental matters as the enigma of nature, nature's duality and oneness, the mutual identity between man and nature, issues of god and evolution, mind and body, life and death, and sexuality, and concerns with intuition, spontaneity and primitivism. Lawrence met with hostility and prejudice from the literary world partly because some of his viewpoints were misread and misunderstood. However, they can be to a large degree explained and justified by traditional Oriental thought. In Lawrence's understanding of man's integrity and "living wholeness", we have his "indecent" proposition of sexuality, his "strange" assertion of blood consciousness and stress upon the solar plexus, his rejection of mind and intellect, and his preference for desire over ideology, and for primitivism over industrial materialism. These are views parallel to those of Taoism, though they also have their traces in the Western scientific readings which Lawrence was familiar with. Lawrence's transcendental attitude towards nature accounts for his extraordinary sensitivity to the natural world, and for his radical criticism of modern civilizations, sciences and the mechanical life, particularly in terms of financial motivation. The study of Lawrence's philosophy of nature suggests that Lawrence is an outstanding example of twentieth-century Romanticism. Furthermore, in Lawrence and in his work, we see a prominent figure in the development of a new environmental consciousness in literature.

Previous research has shown that the English article system poses a great challenge to second language learners of English. Thus, this current study aims at understanding the difficulties first year Libyan students have in acquiring the English article system by using the following three steps. First, the Contrastive Analysis Hypothesis (CAH) was adopted to compare the article system in both English and Arabic. This procedure was employed in order to predict the difficulties that Libyan learners might be confronted by. Therefore, based on CAH, several difficulties were predicted. Moreover, because there are different opinions between researchers from the Arabic world and those from the west regarding the effect of L1 in the acquisition of grammatical items, this study tests what role L1 may play when L2 Libyan learners of English acquire the English article system. The second part aims to investigate the effectiveness of two kinds of article instruction: an implicit teaching strategy (i.e. textual enhanced input) and an explicit teaching strategy (deductive teaching) with an evaluation of the long-term effects. These teaching strategies were compared in order to: 1. Measure the effectiveness in using the English article system appropriately, 2. Measure grammatical development using t-unit, 3. Measure lexical diversity using TTR. The experiment was administrated to three groups of ESL first year students at Garyounis University in Libya. One group (TEI) received instructions based on an input enhancement strategy. In order to direct the learners’ attention to the target features, the researcher manipulated the learners’ input with the aim of provoking development by deliberately engaging awareness and trying to increase the learners’ attention. The second group (DT) was instructed based on the deductive teaching strategy. It was instructed in accordance with two popular grammar books, specifically ‘Essential Grammar in Use’ by Murphy (1998) and ‘Oxford Practice Grammar’ by Eastwood (1999). The third group, the (CG) served as the control group and received exposure to language through reading passages. The procedure of this group was similar to that of the (TEI) group, with the only difference being that the articles in the texts for this group were not enhanced. All three groups were given a similar article test three times as the pre- test, post- test 1 and post-test 2. The pre-test was given prior to the treatment so that the results of the test served to ascertain a baseline for all groups. Then, eight weeks later, after the treatment was finished, post-test 1 was immediately given, in order to measure proficiency gains; post-test 2 was given to the students six months later to distinguish the long term effects on the learning process. With regards to the effectiveness of using the English article appropriately, the results showed that group DT improved from pre-test to post-tests 1& 2. The scores that were above chance in post-test1 & 2 were better than those in the pre-test. In the TEI group, the scores which were above chance, slightly improved from pre-test to post-tests 1 & 2. For the CG group, the scores in post-test 1 which were above chance, improved slightly from pre-test and that the scores in post-test 2 reduced from those of the pre-test. The measurement of lexical diversity was undertaken using TTR. The results showed that both groups TEI and CG presented better results (i.e. development in students’ writing) than the DT group in post-test 1. In post-test 2, only the TEI group improved significantly. This result suggests that the TEI group remained unchanged after 6 months of instruction. The third part of this study analyzed and classified learners’ errors. It confirmed the types of errors predicted previously in chapter 3: omission of a/an/the, unnecessary insertion of a/an / the and confusion between a and an. The results revealed that the percentage of omission of a/an was higher than the omission of ‘the’, and that the percentage of unnecessary insertion of a/an/the was less than the omission of a/an/the.

This thesis explores the ways in which seventeenth-century nonconformist writers used the Puritan model of spiritual autobiography to record their individual forms of dissent. Spiritual autobiography is read against the political and religious turmoil that existed in England in the aftermath of the Civil Wars and during the subsequent Restoration. Through a study of four dissenting writers I show how a genre seen usually as a record of spiritual crisis and ultimate reconciliation, was also used as a way of communicating gendered, psychological, domestic, and religious dissent by writers from the extreme margins of society. The argument differs from other studies of spiritual autobiography in that I situate the genre beyond the strict confines of soteriology and adopt an interdisciplinary approach that deploys literary, historical, and theoretical readings. I draw upon the theories of Jean-François Lyotard in order to illustrate a mood analogous to postmodernism apparent in the nonconformist psyche as well as to contextualise the wider dissent shown to exist in the seventeenth century. By applying Lyotard’s concepts of Svelteness, competing Phrase Regimens, and the Differend to spiritual autobiographies by John Bunyan, Agnes Beaumont, Laurence Clarkson, and Richard Norwood this study raises questions with regard to assumptions associated with the genre, the context in which they were written, and so presents new readings of often marginal texts.

This thesis investigates the life and work of six eighteenth-century writers, two male and four female. It explores their experience of depression through their letters and other autobiographical material, and examines the ways in which they represent melancholy in their poetry and prose. The subject of Chapter Two is Thomas Gray, whose real life persona as the lonely intellectual is also identifiable in his poetry. The Scottish poet Robert Fergusson is studied in Chapter Three. Fergusson’s lively and vigorous mind was shattered in the months leading up to his death, during which time some of his writing became darkly nihilistic. Chapter Four looks at Anne Finch, Countess of Winchilsea, a lifelong depressive who often wrote about her feelings of despair in her poetry. Chapter Five explores Lady Mary Wortley Montagu. She was a courageous and controversial figure, but despite her resilience, on occasion in her letters she reveals her vulnerability and susceptibility to low spirits, a mood which is sometimes expressed in her creative writing. Sarah Scott, whose life and work have not yet been considered in relation to the subject of melancholy, is examined in Chapter Six. Her novel includes several low-spirited and depressed female characters who are continually seeking asylum from a hostile world. Chapter Seven analyses Charlotte Smith, a mother of twelve children whose unhappy marriage ended in separation. Smith wrote extensively about her depression in her letters, prefaces, poetry and novels. This study shows that the women in particular use their writing on melancholy and depression to express their discontent with the confined way in which they are often expected to live out their lives.

The findings of language attitude studies amongst learners of English have consistently demonstrated that native speakers of English are accorded higher evaluations in terms of status/prestige, whereas non-native speakers of English are often rated high in terms of social attractiveness/solidarity. For the majority of language attitude studies, the inclusion of native speakers of English in speech evaluation experiments has served as useful for investigating the complex attitudes towards English speech among English language learners. However, over the past two decades there has been a growing argument that the unprecedented spread of English language learning has led to questions over the ownership of the English language and the functions for its study, with many arguing that English is no longer learned primarily to communicate with native speakers of English, but as a means to communicate between those that do not share the same first language. Despite this, few studies have focused solely on attitudes held by English language learners in the expanding circle towards one another. Moreover, informants in language attitudes studies amongst English language learners have often been limited to informants of homogenous national groups, thus making direct comparisons between the multitudes of language attitude studies across national groups difficult.

This research aims to develop understanding of how teachers’ experience of practising creative writing influences pedagogy in schools. The research is located within a literary studies domain, responding to the context in which creative writing is most commonly taught in schools and in higher education. The central research question explored is: • How is the pedagogy of creative writing in schools influenced by teachers’ creative writing practice? The research explores the premise that creative writing practice has the potential to raise teachers’ ‘confidence as writers’, enabling them to ‘provide better models for pupils’ (Ofsted, 2009: p.6). This thesis examines what ‘creative writing practice’ means in the context of developing pedagogy; considers how creative writing is conceptualised by teachers; and investigates how teachers’ creative writing practice connects to pedagogic methods and approaches. The research sub questions that underpin the research are: • How has creative writing been conceptualised in educational policy, and how do these conceptions influence pedagogy in schools? • Does the practice of creative writing influence teachers’ conceptualisations of creative writing, and, if so, what is the impact on pedagogy? • Does the practice of creative writing influence teachers’ perceptions of themselves as writers, and, if so, what is the impact on pedagogy? • Does the experience of working with writers influence teachers’ pedagogic approaches in the classroom, and if so, how? The research includes a case study involving 14 primary and secondary school teachers, engaged in developing their own creative writing practice under the guidance of professional writers. The case study approach enables exploration of the research questions through analysis of participants’ lived experience of creative writing practice and pedagogy. The analysis of the case study at the heart of this research is situated within an interpretive framework, acknowledging the complexity of multiple meanings at play in socio-cultural learning contexts. The analysis draws on Bruner’s exploration of how pedagogical approaches imply conceptions of the learner’s mind and pedagogy (Bruner, 1996), and considers the interplay between teachers’ experiences of creative writing, and their choice of pedagogical methods and approaches.