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The goal of this thesis is to add a typologically distinct data point to the investigation of access and representation of words in the mental lexicon, which until recently has been biased towards English. We concentrated on Polish, which contrasts with English in the richness of its inflectional and derivational morphology and its morpho-phonological alternations. Using immediate cross-modal and delayed auditory-auditory priming, parallel issues to those examined in English are investigated, as well as questions which cannot be addressed in English, because of differences in morphological properties. Four main findings are reported. First, the representation of morphologically complex Polish words is combinatorial, similar to English; This is supported by: (a) robust priming for items which share the same stem; (b) affix priming for morphologically complex items; (c) suffix-suffix interference for items competing for the same stem; Second, the results on Polish highly and moderately semantically transparent compounds suggest that the former may be represented in a combinatorial format and the latter as full forms. This contrasts with English where both types of compound are claimed to be stored as full forms. Third, initial investigations of the role of semantic transparency in determining how morphologically complex words are represented, suggest that transparent items are stored decompositionally whereas opaque items are stored as full forms. This conforms to the English findings, but contrasts with Semitic languages. Further investigations indicate that semantic compositionality may be more important that transparency, although more research is needed here. Finally, the results suggest that phonological alternants of the same stem, whether regular or irregular, are stored in a single lexical entry, and, in the auditory modality, map directly onto the same abstract underlying representation. Overall the results support the claim that the Polish lexicon IS organised morphemically in a combinatorial, phonologically abstract format

<p> This dissertation is an investigation into compound verbal structures in Hiaki in which a verb of motion is modified by an adjoined lexical verb or verb phrase. It provides the first in-depth documentation and analysis of this structure in Hiaki, an endangered language indigenous to North America, and it explores the extent to which complex predicates of motion may be said to form a discrete class crosslinguistically, either in structural or semantic terms, by comparing Hiaki with genetically and typologically distinct languages such as Korean and Warlpiri. </p><p> The study asks the following questions: 1) What is the underlying structure of a Hiaki compound verb? In particular, what is the structure when the head verb is intransitive and thus cannot take the second verb or verb phrase as its complement? 2) To what extent can complex motion predicates in different languages be said to map to identical underlying syntactic structures? That is, if we compare these constructions in Hiaki with those in languages with different surface morphosyntactic realizations, how do the allowable surface forms constrain the possible underlying structures? 3) Is there evidence to suggest a cline or typology of complex motion predicate constructions? </p><p> The overall goals of the dissertation project are the detailed documentation, description and theoretical analysis of complex motion constructions in Hiaki, the crosslinguistic comparison of these constructions, and the expansion of an existing database of transcribed and interlinearized Hiaki texts.</p>

This thesis is a proposal for a new approach to the investigation of the language of telephone conversations. It strives to integrate the framework of analysis advocated by conversation analysts (originally the first to examine these conversations) and that of pragmaticists, in an attempt to provide description and explanation of telephone behaviour. It is based on the examination of telephone talk in Ecuadorian Spanish and British English. Such an approach requires the examination of these conversations at four levels - the level of their underlying structure which is analyzed in terms of skeletons, paths and moves, the linguistic realization of moves in relation to features of context, the politeness orientations behind moves and their linguistic realizations, and finally, the socio-cultural motivations behind linguistic choices and politeness orientations. In addition, this thesis constitutes a study in cross-cultural communication in that it attempts to determine basic similarities and differences in the organization of telephone conversations in two languages and cultures, which can provide insights into broader differences in the linguistic and politeness systems of those two languages.

This study is an attempt to investigate the interlanguage (IL) development of Cantonese learners of English whose exposure to the target language (TL) is mainly from the classroom context and with little or no informal exposure outside the classroom. Second Language Acquisition (SLA) research to date suggests that naturalistic SL learners largely follow a universal route of development. The issue of concern of the present research is whether acquiring the TL in a classroom context involves the same or different processes of SLA and how the learning context shapes the qualitative development in terms of the degree of analyticity and automaticity of IL knowledge. An equally important issue in relation to SLA in the classroom situation is the development of metalinguistic knowledge and in what principled way this type of knowledge assists or hinders the learner's development. Within this framework of investigation, an empirical distinction is drawn between the learner's development of IL knowledge and the extent to which he is able to retrieve this knowledge in production. In the present study, three groups of learners were identified. Two groups of subjects were sampled from the Hong Kong learning context, where English is regarded by and large as a second language. One of the two groups was chosen from the English medium environment, and the other was from the Chinese medium environment. The third group of subjects was drawn from Guangzhou, one of the southern provinces of China, where the medium of instruction is Chinese while English is treated as a foreign language. Although these three groups of subjects share the same Li background, they are differentiated by the availability of informal exposure and the degree of explicitness of grammar teaching received. The English interrogatives were chosen as the target language structure for investigation because they represent one of the taught language items commonly found in the syllabus. Four elicitation tasks were administered: an oral elicitation task, a written dialogue completion task, a grammar correction task and a timed grammaticality judgment task. From the perspective of the general theory of second language acquisition, the results suggest that the classroom learners as identified in the present study largely conformed to the universal `sequence of development' and exhibited similarities in their orders of development. However, it was found that certain features of the learner's order of development at the level of knowledge did not necessarily coincide with that established in his production. Furthermore, an adequate explanation for IL development, as far as this study is concerned, needs to take into account the learner's Li as well as the other types of knowledge at his disposal, as differences were found in the present study which may be traceable to these parameters. In terms of the effect of learning context on second language development, the results suggest that (i) the different learning contexts as identified leads to certain differences in the subjects' IL development as well as the qualitative development of their IL knowledge, (ii) the provision of explicit instruction seems to be more beneficial for more advanced learners than beginners; and when informal exposure is not available in the learning context, and (iii) the availability of informal exposure of the kind found in the present study seems to promote initial IL development at a faster rate than that found in learning contexts in which informal exposure is not usually available.

This thesis investigates the attitudes of young people in Brittany (aged 8-18) towards varieties of language (especially Breton) and the link between language and identity. The sociolinguistic situation in Brittany (past and present) is outlined, and previous research on language attitudes is reviewed. In phase 1 of the project, different informants completed a written questionnaire (470 respondents) and a Matched Guise Test (258 listener-judges), the latter involving Breton, Breton-accented French and Standard-accented French. The questionnaire responses revealed a strong correlation, verified by chi-square tests, between levels of use of Breton and perceptions of identity. Although those respondents from the traditionally Bretonspeaking western part of Brittany (Basse Bretagne) were keen for the language to be preserved, very few were willing to contribute to this process. The respondents from traditionally non Breton-speaking eastern Brittany (Haute Bretagne) were less positive in their views on the future of Breton. The least favourable ratings for the future of Breton were expressed by 15 to 16 year old males, and this was attributed to differences between male and female peer group norms. Breton emerged very favourably from the Matched Guise Test with positive ratings for both status and solidarity traits (a distinction identified by factor analysis of the data). Further breakdown and analysis of the results for the two regions revealed major differences in the evaluation of Breton in Basse and Haute Bretagne, which were attributed to the perceptions of Breton as either Li or L2 by different informant groups. These differing perceptions of Breton further complicated the relationship between the varieties, which may have contributed to the unexpected downgrading of Standardaccented French in terms of status in several cases. The 13-14 year olds perceivedBreton-accented French as the most statusful of the three varieties, a reaction which was attributed to the typical use and positive reinforcement of non-standard speech forms by this age group. In phase 2, 62 informants from western Brittany participated in interviews (based on the questionnaire, administered previously to other respondents), and pair-discussions of the MGT recordings. The overall picture provided by the interviews indicated that although informants expressed a keen interest in improving their competence in Breton, they did not support initiatives designed to encourage this such as the compulsory teaching of Breton in schools. This finding, which supported that of the questionnaire, gave rise to the distinction between the passive and active expression of attitudes. The interviews also revealed the complexity of the relationship between language and identity, with the informants' assertions that Breton identity was more strongly related to origin and residence than competence in Breton. This apparent contradiction between perceptions of the role played by language in determining identity, and the reality of the informants' responses concerning use, appeared to be operating at the subconscious level. The pair-discussions revealed that age was a central aspect of identity which had not yet been investigated in the current project, and which provided an explanation for the different attitudes towards Breton speakers in the MGT: there was an equal division between those who considered them to be young L2 speakers and those who assumed them to be old native speakers of Breton. This aspect of identity also played a key role in the construction of profiles for each guise which gave typical reactions to each guise in order to highlight patterns running through the discourse data. The combination of different methods in the current study was designed to elicit different insights into attitudes and perceptions of identity in the data.

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