Zugl.: Duisburg, Essen, Univ., Diss.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Cornell University, 1997.

Dickens's portrayal of madness in his novels was to some extent influenced by earlier literary conventions. The third chapter broadly considers his writing within the context of a range of literary traditions, indicating ways in which the subject of insanity was handled in a variety of genres with which he was familiar. The chapter highlights themes of madness as a punishment for human misdeeds: the use of insane characters as victims of circumstance, and the restorative effects of insanity. This study will, however reveal, that although Dickens's writing draws upon a wide range of literary traditions, his novels bear his own individual stamp. Chapter Four considers ways in which Dickens was influenced by his own firsthand knowledge of madness, as experienced by people known to him, or visited by him. It highlights his attitudes towards those who were mentally afflicted, and illuminates the nature of his strongly-held views on this subject, as author and as editor. In the ensuing chapters, several key novels have been selected for a detailed consideration of ways in which Dickens's handling of madness shifted in focus as he matured as a writer. Chapter Five compares and contrasts his early treatment of this theme in Sketches by Boz, Pickwick Papers, Oliver Twist and Nicholas Nickleby, novels in which he explored the potential of madness as an expression of moral failure. The sixth chapter, whilst drawing upon some themes from The Old Curiosity Shop, highlights his experimentation with an insane central character in Barnaby Rudge. It also notes the significant contribution of the minor character, Mr Dick, within the framework of David Copperfield, contrasting the role of this benign madman with that of the deranged, malign figure of Miss Havisham in Great Expectations, characters exemplifying his portrayal of insanity in victims of circumstance, whilst also illustrating their potential effect upon other characters. The treatment of insanity in Bleak House and Little Dorrit is examined in the seventh chapter, which highlights Dickens's experimentation with insanity as an expression of human frailty and concludes with a study of A Tale of Two Cities, a novel marking the height of Dickens's achievement in his arresting portrayal of madness in both theme and character. The final chapter evaluates the significant role of madness in Dickens's novels, and draws conclusions about the reasons why he chose to describe insanity in so many forms. Whilst illuminating ways in which his portrayal of this subject shifted in focus as he mastered new technical skills, it highlights the changing uses Dickens made of insanity. Far from being a "dreadful visitation" in its literary representation, Dickens discovered that madness, a subject which fascinated him, provided him with a wealth of possibilities in exposing hidden depths of meaning in his novels, highlighting too the ways in which his own creative vision changed in its emphasis as he matured as a writer.

History and national consciousness are central to the creation and sustaining of national identity. Although much has been written on German national identity, there has been little examination of how the 60th anniversary of the Allied air campaign or expulsion of ethnic Germans are remembered from the perspective of the Germans as victims. Reflecting the changing status of the National Socialist past as it continues to affect the present, this thesis argues there were significant disparities between official and popular perceptions of national identity and memory. Presenting a focussed examination of current developments in German society and politics from a German perspective, this thesis examines why many in Germany have rejected a national identity based on a constitutional patriotism and collective atonement. Debates conducted by prominent intellectuals, journalists and academics in leading newspapers and magazines have been compared to statements from Ministers and official reports in order to ascertain the extent to which elite conceptions of national identity find resonance within Germany. Providing fresh evidence from periodicals, archive publications, eyewitness testimonies and books, this informative and arguably compelling thesis makes a significant and original contribution on how German history and identity are now being perceived and represented in Germany. Competing perceptions of the past and present warrant urgent recognition because so long as a disparate national identity and culture of remembrance continues there can be no effective reconciliation with either the German elite or with others. A greater understanding and recognition of the themes addressed however could not only encourage greater toleration, but also perhaps dispel the increasing sense of bitterness concerning recent aspects of the country's past.

Mobile learning is the attainment of any knowledge or skill through using mobile technology, anywhere, anytime (Hashemi et al. 2477). Hashemi and Ghasemi also state that mobile phones are one of the most successful technologies in the past two decades (2947). More and more educators are using mobile phones as an educational tool. Second Language Acquisition has also been redefined due to the advent of Mobile learning and text-messaging. Khazaie and Ketabi explain that "the value of deploying technology at the service of learning and teaching seems to be both self-evident and unavoidable" (174). There are many studies of using text-message technologies in education and in Second Language Leaning of English, but these publications do not provide any evidence of the use of Mobile technologies or text-messaging in Second Language Acquisition of Spanish. This paper presents a study using text-message in the teaching and learning of Spanish Vocabulary in a second semester Spanish course. It compared a Control group that used a conventional paper based task learning method and an Experiment group that used text-messaging leaning method to learn twelve Spanish Vocabulary words. The results from the study show that text-messaging can be used as an effective Spanish Vocabulary language learning tool and students enjoyed the use of this vocabulary learning method. The finding in this study could perform as a roadmap in creating more studies that involve the use of mobile learning and text-messaging in the learning of Spanish vocabulary and Spanish as a Second Language.

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This thesis presents a formal and functional analysis of footnotes In academic journal articles. In Chapter One a brief account of the recent history of Genre Analysis Studies leading to a definition of footnotes Is given. Also given is an account of the differences and similarities between footnotes and some other germane conventional structures (viz, parentheticals and asides) that may carry out similar functions to those that footnotes realize. Reasons why writers use footnotes are suggested and discussed. The work Is based on a corpus of 10 linguistics journal articles comprising 113 footnotes. In the search for a framework in Chapter Two, the relevant literature on text and discourse analysis studies is carefully examined and applied to a sample of the data used for the present work. A classification of the functions to which the article writers have put their footnotes Is offered In Chapter Three. The Chapter ends with a discussio. of the. cxttexta wttte.cs lzase. their footnoting decisions on. The cohesion and coherence relations between footnotes, the 'matrix text exit sentence' (i.e. the sentence tagged by the footnote) and the 'matrix text re-entry sentence' (i.e. the sentence following the one tagged by the footnote) had been Investigated In the context of cohesion and coherence theories and Winter's "Clause Relations". An experiment was conducted to test the coherence and cohesion relations between 'matrix text exit sentences' and footnotes. The issue of whether footnotes present new or old information Is then taken up and the literature on the THENE-RHEME dichotomy is reviewed with a view to shedding further light on footnotes. Chapter Five Is concerned with the question of whether footnotes help or hinder the reader and the reading process and the results are statistically analyzed. Readers' attitudes towards footnotes are surveyed through the use of a questionnaire. Also addressed are the Issues of: the utility of footnotes to readers and the purposes for which readers consult footnotes. In Chapter Six some linguistic features recurring In footnotes (e.g. formulaic expressions, the frequent use of proper names, hedges, etc.) are studied. The results of the study suggest that the employment of footnotes Is a compensatory strategy on the part of writers to overcome the problem of being over/under informative especially when an article is targeted at a multiple audience. This thesis, In addition to the fact that It provides a coverage of a neglected but intrinsically InterestIng and important genre (FOOTNOTES), makes certain theoretical and pedagogical suggestions and identifies further issues for future research which are presented on in Chapter Seven.

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Comprising a novel and complementary discourses, this thesis blurs the traditional distinctions between critical theory and creative practice, and contributes new insights into the practice, craft, and theory of the contemporary novel. It stages a praxical enquiry in which the creative texts perform a triple function: as original literature, as documents of process, and as critical enquiry. In so doing the texts add to our understanding of how life history and gender influence literary production, and delineate the nexus of fiction/biography/autobiography, both in terms of the individual writer negotiating the matrix of self and other, and in terms of the author in a wider social and historical context. The main apparatus for this investigation is a work of prose fiction that exploits the ability of the novel to sustain a critical exploration while simultaneously delivering a satisfying narrative. It is a composite text that, I will argue, works as historiographic metafiction to dramatise key events in the apparently disparate lives of three women who are separated by historical and social context. The relationship between the three women becomes visible as the narratives gradually reveal their connections. Via this structure, layers of resonance accrue as the themes outlined above are worked through in this fictional space. Alongside the novel, complementary discourses present the poetics that have been developed in its production. They examine the critical and historical context of my work, articulating insights gained into the novelist’s craft, the nature and purpose of the writer's tool kit, and its relationship with the author's life history. The complementary discourses conclude by offering responses to questions about the interactions between gender, genre and creative processes, before proposing future lines of enquiry into the nature and possibilities of the novel.

The thesis seeks to analyse the industrial strategy of the Communist Party of Great Britain (CP) within the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM). Although many historians have discussed the CP’s industrial work, particularly in the pre-1945 period, this thesis is original because there is not yet a detailed study of the party’s work in the NUM between 1945 and 1985. The thesis also aims to make an intervention into post-war political history more generally, beginning its coverage in 1945 with the election of the first majority Labour government, at a time when both the party and the mining industry had high hopes for the future. The research concludes in 1985, after the miners’ strike, when both the NUM and the CP were irreparably divided. The thesis works within two overarching paradoxes: firstly, that the CP was believed to be ubiquitous in industry, yet weak elsewhere. Secondly, that the party ultimately imploded as a result of factionalism, which arose because of the industrial strategy that the CP had spent most of the post-war period adhering to. Moreover, the thesis makes four original contributions to knowledge. The work uses the historical method, drawing on empirical evidence from archives in Salford, Manchester, Warwick, Kew, London, Swansea and Barnsley, along with secondary evidence and interviews with protagonists, to construct a chronological analysis of the events; this, in addition to the scope of the work, is an original methodological contribution to knowledge. The second contribution discusses the relationship between the CP and communists in industry; although this has been discussed in the existing literature, the thesis adds more evidence to this through a detailed analysis of this specific period within the NUM. The thesis also offers the findings as a hypothesis for observations about the party’s industrial strategy generally, considering how the results of this study might be applied to other industries. The third original area is the theme of conflict across three groups: particularly, concerning the relationship between individual communists in the union; the party itself and communists in the union; and communists in the NUM and the union itself. The fourth area of originality derives from the thesis’s detailed analysis of wage militancy in the union across this period, a focus yet to be explored in any depth.