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<p dir="ltr">The present dissertation addresses the gap of how the three contextual variables (power, distance, and imposition) affect the use and perception of pitch range and final pitch contours in Central Peninsular Spanish polar questions. The methodological approach in this dissertation combines a production experiment in the form of a contextualized sentence-reading task (e.g., Brown et al., 2014; Henriksen, 2013) and a perception experiment using a pragmatic judgment task (e.g., Nadeu & Prieto, 2011). Both tasks systematically incorporated a set of situations that included the contextual variables of power, distance, and imposition. Thus, this dissertation provides a systematic analysis of power, distance, and imposition to investigate their influence on the use and perception of pitch range and pitch contours. To analyze pitch in the production experiment, a categorical analysis of final pitch contours (e.g., low-rising contour) and a quantitative analysis of prosodic features (i.e., pitch range and its conversion into semitones) were conducted. For the perception experiment, analyses included the comparison of linear mixed models to examine the perceived degree of politeness.</p><p dir="ltr">The findings presented in this dissertation support the Frequency Code Hypothesis in that they showed the relevance of pitch for signaling and perceiving politeness in requests in Spanish. The results from the production experiment suggested there are no effects of power, distance, and imposition on the selection of final intonational contours. Regarding the analysis of pitch range, the results from the production experiment indicated that the use of greater pitch range was associated with an increase in the social distance between the speakers. In the perception experiment, the results indicated that an increase in pitch range was directly associated with an increase in the perceived degree of politeness. Furthermore, the findings from this dissertation provided evidence for including a systematic analysis of the contextual variables of power, distance, and imposition to conduct analyses within the politeness framework instead of analyzing the formal/informal dimension in isolation The overall results of this dissertation contribute to the understanding of how suprasegmental features are employed in showing and perceivicing politeness.</p>

<p dir="ltr">Upon acquiring or learning another language, cross-linguistic influence (CLI) is an inevitable phenomenon with which a bilingual speaker lives. One key aspect of CLI is its bidirectionality, flowing between both the first (L1) and second languages (L2) mutually affecting each other. However, investigations of L1 CLI on L2 have dominated previous bilingual studies, and despite the increasing amount of research on L2 CLI on L1, the phonetic and phonological domains remain relatively underexplored. The primary goal of the present study is to expand our understanding of the underlying mechanisms governing L2 CLI on L1 phonetics and phonology.</p><p dir="ltr">The present study investigates L2 CLI on L1 phonetics and phonology by examining both the speech perception and production of L1 sound categories among two different groups of bilinguals, Korean heritage speakers (HSs, <i>n</i> = 30) and long-term immigrants (LTIs, <i>n</i> = 27) group participants in the US, in comparison to L1(Korean)-immersed (L1-i) native speakers residing in South Korea (<i>n</i> = 30). Participants completed a series of three experimental tasks: (1) a three-alternative forced-choice (3AFC) identification task, (2) an AX discrimination task, and (3) a controlled reading paradigm task.</p><p dir="ltr">Experiment 1 (3AFC task) was conducted to investigate the extent and direction of L2 CLI in perceptual cue weighting to L1 speech categories. In this task, participants listened to a Korean word in each trial, potentially differing in the word-initial stop, and decided which word they heard from a real-word Korean minimal triplet /pul/ ‘fire,’ /p^hul/ ‘grass,’ and /p^*ul/ ‘horn.’ Specifically, the word-initial stop consisted of an eight-by-eight orthogonal voice onset time (VOT)–onset f0 continuum, created through a speech resynthesis technique. Based on the similarities and differences in the use of the two acoustic parameters between Korean (either onset f0 or VOT is a primary cue) and English stops (VOT is the primary cue), bilingual participants were expected to exhibit different cue-weighting patterns, as compared to L1-i speakers. The results from the mixed-effects logistic regression model analyses indicated that while HSs were less sensitive to the Korean primary cue, onset f0, compared to L1-i speakers—suggesting assimilation to L2 in the perceptual domain—LTIs exhibited greater sensitivity to this cue, indicating dissimilation from L2. It was also found that bilingual participants’ Korean dominance significantly influenced their cue weighting in the perception of Korean stops.</p><p dir="ltr">Experiment 2 (AX discrimination task) was administered to assess participants’ perceptual accuracy for L1 stop categories and the potential impact of L1 cue weighting, as estimated in Experiment 1, on their discrimination performance. Notably, the VOT in the stop stimuli used in the AX task were resynthesized to have a consistent VOT of 70 ms across all stimuli. This setup created a condition where participants had no choice but to rely solely on the onset f0 cue—the primary cue to the Korean lenis-aspirated stop contrast, rendering VOT, the primary cue for the voicing contrast in English stops, uninformative. The results from mixed-effects logistic regression models showed that HSs were significantly less accurate in discriminating their L1 stop categories without the VOT cue, while LTIs outperformed the L1-i speakers. That is, the LTI group, the most balanced group in terms of language dominance, had the highest accuracy in discriminating L1 contrasts among the participant groups. Furthermore, individual sensitivity to the onset f0 cue was found to be positively correlated with discrimination performance.</p><p dir="ltr">Experiment 3 (Controlled reading paradigm) aimed to examine L2 CLI on the implementation of acoustic parameters for L1 Korean stops, as well as the potential impact of proficiency and dominance on these parameters. Participants read aloud a list of minimal triplet stimuli differing in the word-initial stop within a carrier phrase. A machine-learning-based audio signal detection system was used to analyze the acoustic parameters, and Bayesian mixed-effects linear regression models, along with quadratic polynomial regression models, were implemented for statistical analysis of the processed data. The results of the production task mirrored the perception task (Experiment 1): HSs demonstrated assimilation to L2 via onset f0, while LTIs showed dissimilation, as compared to L1-i speakers. The analysis also revealed that the degree of bilingual balance in dominance and proficiency significantly influenced the implementation of onset f0, with more balanced bilinguals exhibiting greater category contrasts than less balanced bilinguals, regardless of whether they were Korean-dominant or English-dominant.</p><p dir="ltr">The findings from these experiments provide concrete evidence of L2 CLI in L1 phonetics and phonology. Importantly, the results demonstrate that not only the timing of L2 acquisition and the quantity and quality of L2 input but also the quality and quantity of L1 acquisition and bilingual balance contribute to the direction and the degree of L2 CLI in L1 speech. These findings align with the predictions of the revised Speech Learning Model (SLM-r, Flege & Bohn, 2021) and expand its scope of application to include both HSs and LTIs. In particular, the evidence of category assimilation and dissimilation lends support to the bidirectional CLI hypothesis proposed by SLM-r. To conclude, the present dissertation expands our understanding of the nature of L2 CLI in L1 phonetics and phonology in bilingual speakers.</p>

This thesis consists of a series of analytically independent, but conceptually interrelated studies of language ideologies across a number of different discursive terrains. The overarching objective of these interventions is to illuminate the relationship between language, politics and subjectivity from a number of different historical, philosophical, theoretical and empirical perspectives. This, in turn, is pursued with the aim to critically interrogate the ways in which social psychology has traditionally conceptualised and approached language (and language related phenomena), and to explore some of the conceptual, metatheoretical and theoretical requirements for a reconfigured, critical social psychology of language. Towards this end, the following specific themes are explored: (1) the political role language has historically played in South Africa, especially with regards to the articulation and political embodiment of various ethnically, racially and nationally mediated forms of subjectivity (Chapter 3); the politically productive role language has played in the emergence of nationalism, nation-state societies and the modern political order more broadly (and, vice versa, the role nationalism and the modern nation-state has played in delineating language as an ontologically, epistemologically and politically consistent object of state, academic and popular interest) (Chapter 4); (3) the way in which nationally mediated and state-oriented conceptions of language, politics and political subjectivity have been assumed, naturalised and reproduced by traditional social psychology throughout the twentieth century (Chapter 5); and (4) the way in which ordinary discussions about language in an everyday South African setting contribute (by invoking liberal and nationalist discourses, amongst others) to the continued racialisation of language and public space in this country, and to the further legitimisation of linguistically mediated forms of inequality and marginalisation (Chapter 6). In each instance the focus is on language as both constructed and constructive in relation to the emergence of particular social and political orders and their associated subjectivities. The thesis concludes with a reflection on the limits of discourse and ideology as frameworks for the study of language, politics and subjectivity, and develops a number of tentative ideas about language as a corporeal component of embodied and affective subjectivities (Chapter 7). / Thesis (Ph. D.) (Psychology)

This thesis consists of a series of analytically independent, but conceptually interrelated studies of language ideologies across a number of different discursive terrains. The overarching objective of these interventions is to illuminate the relationship between language, politics and subjectivity from a number of different historical, philosophical, theoretical and empirical perspectives. This, in turn, is pursued with the aim to critically interrogate the ways in which social psychology has traditionally conceptualised and approached language (and language related phenomena), and to explore some of the conceptual, metatheoretical and theoretical requirements for a reconfigured, critical social psychology of language. Towards this end, the following specific themes are explored: (1) the political role language has historically played in South Africa, especially with regards to the articulation and political embodiment of various ethnically, racially and nationally mediated forms of subjectivity (Chapter 3); the politically productive role language has played in the emergence of nationalism, nation-state societies and the modern political order more broadly (and, vice versa, the role nationalism and the modern nation-state has played in delineating language as an ontologically, epistemologically and politically consistent object of state, academic and popular interest) (Chapter 4); (3) the way in which nationally mediated and state-oriented conceptions of language, politics and political subjectivity have been assumed, naturalised and reproduced by traditional social psychology throughout the twentieth century (Chapter 5); and (4) the way in which ordinary discussions about language in an everyday South African setting contribute (by invoking liberal and nationalist discourses, amongst others) to the continued racialisation of language and public space in this country, and to the further legitimisation of linguistically mediated forms of inequality and marginalisation (Chapter 6). In each instance the focus is on language as both constructed and constructive in relation to the emergence of particular social and political orders and their associated subjectivities. The thesis concludes with a reflection on the limits of discourse and ideology as frameworks for the study of language, politics and subjectivity, and develops a number of tentative ideas about language as a corporeal component of embodied and affective subjectivities (Chapter 7). / Thesis (Ph. D.) (Psychology)

Bei der Verarbeitung transitiver Sätze verwendet der Parser verschiedene Informationen, wie die Wortstellung, die Belebtheit und die Kasusmarkierung der Argumente, um eine Repräsentation der im Satz beschriebenen Situation aufzubauen. Frühere psycholinguistische Arbeiten zeigen, dass zwei belebte Argumente in einem Satz zusätzliche Verarbeitungskosten verursachen, außer wenn andere Informationen die Zuweisung der grammatischen und thematischen Rollen an die Argumente erlauben. In kasusmarkierenden Sprachen wie Deutsch ist einer dieser Hinweise die morphologische Kasusmarkierung. Die meisten zweistelligen deutschen Verben weisen ihren Argumenten das kanonische Nominativ-Akkusativ-Kasusmuster zu. Eine kleine Gruppe von zweistelligen Verben weist jedoch das nichtkanonische Nominativ-Dativ-Muster zu. Diese Verben unterschieden sich in ihrer Syntax und Semantik von kanonisch transitiven Verben und verursachen beim Satzverstehen höhere Verarbeitungskosten. In dieser Dissertation wird untersucht, wie die Verarbeitung von Argumentbelebtheitskontrasten während der Satzverarbeitung vom verbalen Kasuszuweisungsmuster moduliert wird. Ich stelle die Ergebnisse vier verschiedener Experimente vor (selbstgetaktetes Lesen, Blickbewegungsmessungen und EKP-Messungen). Alle experimentellen Methoden zeigen, dass der Effekt der Argumentbelebtheitskonstraste mit dem Effekt des verbalen Kasuszuweisungsmusters interagiert. Die Ergebnisse zeigen ein detaillierteres Bild der Satzverarbeitung und tragen zur Vereinigung der Transitivätsbegriffe in theoretischer Linguistik und Psycholinguistik bei. / During the comprehension of transitive sentences, the parser uses different kinds of information like word order, the arguments'' animacy status and case marking to build a representation of the situation the sentence describes. Previous research in psycholinguistics has shown that two animate arguments in a sentence cause additional processing costs, unless other cues allow the assignment of grammatical and thematic roles to the arguments. In case-marking languages like German, one of these cues is morphological case marking. While most German verbs assign the canonical nominative-accusative case pattern to their arguments, a small group of verbs assign noncanonical nominative-dative. These verbs differ from standard transitive verbs both in their syntax and their semantics, and are known to cause higher processing cost during comprehension. This dissertation examines how the processing of argument animacy contrasts during sentence comprehension is modulated by the verbal case marking pattern. I report the results of four different experiments, using self-paced reading time measurements, eyetracking and ERP measurements. All experimental methods show that the effect of argument animacy contrasts interacts with the effects of the verbal case marking pattern. The findings add further details to the existing knowledge about sentence comprehension, and combine perspectives on transitivity from theoretical linguistics and psycholinguistics.

Les enfants souffrant de troubles du langage, comme la dyslexie, rencontrent de grandes difficultés dans l'apprentissage de la lecture et dans toute tâche de lecture, par la suite. Ces difficultés compromettent grandement l'accès au sens des textes auxquels ils sont confrontés durant leur scolarité, ce qui implique des difficultés d'apprentissage et les entraîne souvent vers une situation d'échec scolaire. Depuis une quinzaine d'années, des outils développés dans le domaine du Traitement Automatique des Langues sont détournés pour être utilisés comme stratégie d'aide et de compensation pour les élèves en difficultés. Parallèlement, l'usage de cartes conceptuelles ou de cartes heuristiques pour aider les enfants dyslexiques à formuler leurs pensées, ou à retenir certaines connaissances, s'est développé. Ce travail de thèse vise à répertorier et croiser, d'une part, les connaissances sur le public dyslexique, sa prise en charge et ses difficultés, d'autre part, les possibilités pédagogiques ouvertes par l'usage de cartes, et enfin, les technologies de résumé automatique et d'extraction de mots-clés. L'objectif est de réaliser un logiciel novateur capable de transformer automatiquement un texte donné en une carte, celle-ci doit faciliter la compréhension du texte tout en comprenant des fonctionnalités adaptées à un public d'adolescents dyslexiques. Ce projet a abouti, premièrement, à la réalisation d'une expérimentation exploratoire, sur l'aide à la compréhension de texte grâce aux cartes heuristiques, qui permet de définir de nouveaux axes de recherche ; deuxièmement, à la réalisation d'un prototype de logiciel de cartographie automatique qui est présenté en fin de thèse / Children with language impairment, such as dyslexia, are often faced with important difficulties when learning to read and during any subsequent reading tasks. These difficulties tend to compromise the understanding of the texts they must read during their time at school. This implies learning difficulties and may lead to academic failure. Over the past fifteen years, general tools developed in the field of Natural Language Processing have been transformed into specific tools for that help with and compensate for language impaired students' difficulties. At the same time, the use of concept maps or heuristic maps to encourage dyslexic children express their thoughts, or retain certain knowledge, has become popular. This thesis aims to identify and explore knowledge about the dyslexic public, how society takes care of them and what difficulties they face; the pedagogical possibilities opened up by the use of maps; and the opportunities created by automatic summarization and Information Retrieval fields. The aim of this doctoral research project was to create an innovative piece of software that automatically transforms a given text into a map. It was important that this piece of software facilitate reading comprehension while including functionalities that are adapted to dyslexic teenagers. The project involved carrying out an exploratory experiment on reading comprehension aid, thanks to heuristic maps, that make the identification of new research topics possible, and implementing an automatic mapping software prototype that is presented at the end of this thesis

本論文以語意學、認知語言學及心理語言學的觀點，探討中文名詞的多義現象。本篇論文討論詞彙多重意義的語言及心理語言表徵，並研究詞義如何在心理詞彙庫中被擷取。 文中藉由認知語言學者Tuggy（1993）所提出的認知語意架構，及詞彙語意學中「同形異義詞（homonymy）」、「一詞多義（polysemy）」及「模糊意義（vagueness）」等觀念之區辨，探索詞義之本質。本文所談之意義（sense）根據Ahrens（1999）之定義有以下三個特性：（1）意義非轉喻（metonymy）或部分/全體（meronymy）之延伸，但可以是隱喻性延伸；（2）意義之間的延伸關係無法由在同類名詞中直接以規律獲得；（3）除非特意，一詞的不同意義不會在同一語境中同時出現。 針對詞彙辨識歷程的語意效應，本論文有三大研究主題--意義數目效應、意義相關性效應及相對意義頻率效應。各效應之預測如下：「意義數目效應」認為意義數目較多的詞彙在詞彙判斷作業（lexical decision tasks）中比較容易辨識；「意義相關性效應」認為當一個詞的意義之間的相關性較高時，該詞的辨識時間亦會較快；「相對意義頻率效應」則認為一個詞意義之間頻率差異程度越小，該詞越有歧義之特質，也因此越容易辨識。 本研究旨在以實證方式探討這些語意向度在詞彙辨識歷程中所扮演的角色。由受試者提供200個中文名詞的意義並決定意義間的相關性；進行電腦詞彙判斷作業，得到辨識每個詞所需的反應時間；再由統計考驗反應時間來驗證各效應。 本研究結果發現只有「意義數目效應」達顯著水準，意義數目較多的詞彙在詞彙判斷作業中比較容易辨識。此一效應支持心理詞彙庫的隨機觸接模型（random access model）及平行觸接模型（parallel access model）並駁斥「序列搜尋模型（serial access model）」。 / This thesis studies the multiple senses of Chinese nominals from semantic, cognitive linguistic, and psycholinguistic viewpoints. It discusses the linguistic and psycholinguistic representations of a word's multiple senses, and the access of these senses in the mental lexicon. The nature of lexical meaning is examined by discussing lexical semantic notions such as homonymy, polysemy, and vagueness, and by introducing Tuggy's (1993) cognitive linguistic representation of a word's multiple lexical meanings. The "senses" of a word are defined according to the lexical semantic theory of Ahrens (1999) as having three properties: (1) A sense is not an instance of metonymic or meronymic extension, but may be an instance of metaphorical extension. (2) The extension links between two senses cannot be inherited by a class of nouns. (3) Senses cannot appear in the same context (unless the complexity is triggered). This thesis specifically looks into three semantic effects on word recognition, including the word's number-of-sense (NOS) effect, the effect of sense relatedness, and the effect of relative sense frequency. The predictions of these effects are as follows: The NOS effect predicts that words with more senses are recognized faster than those with fewer senses. The effect of sense relatedness predicts that words with more closely related senses are easier to recognize than those with distantly related senses. The effect of relative sense frequency predicts that words with equal sense frequencies are more easily recognized than words with unequal sense frequencies. This research aims at empirically verifying these three effects during the recognition of isolated lexical items. Subjects generate the senses of 200 Chinese nominals, and rate the relatedness among these senses. Lexical decision tasks are conducted to obtain the reaction times required to recognize each stimulus item. The semantic effects are verified by comparing the reaction times of different groups of experimental stimuli. The experimental results confirm only the NOS effect, giving support to the random and parallel access models of lexical access, and refuting the serial access model of the mental lexicon.

M.A. / South Africa is going through a transitional phase and urbanization, which among other things, has caused many families to resettle. The education system is no longer based on bilingualism with English and Afrikaans as the languages used in the senior primary phase. Our multicultural, multilingual society requires that children from different backgrounds be taught in the same classes. Schools in Eldorado Park have experienced an influx of learners with other mother tongues than English and Afrikaans into the schools. This influx has brought with it challenges for both learners and teachers. Teachers had to adapt their teaching methods to accommodate these challenges. Coupled with this is the rationalisation and redeployment process of teachers which is currently taking place. This has resulted in big classes with some catering for as many as fifty learners. Mother tongue speakers of African languages, with or without the necessary language background in English and Afrikaans, are admitted to the schools in different grades and find themselves in classes with learners who are fluent in English and Afrikaans. In this study some of the problems that teachers and learners experience are identified, the participation of parents in the education process is emphasised and the importance of language planning with regard to the child's medium of instruction and the school's first and second languages stressed. The research has touched on the implications of various aspects of language acquisition and learning (amongst other important findings). It was found that teachers need continual support from the government, the parents and the school's governing body.