The role of the lexicon has been ignored or minimized in most work on computational stylistics. This research is an effort to fill that gap, demonstrating the key role that the lexicon plays in stylistic variation. In doing so, I bring together a number of diverse perspectives, including aesthetic, functional, and sociological aspects of style. The first major contribution of the thesis is the creation of aesthetic stylistic lexical resources from large mixed-register corpora, adapting statistical techniques from approaches to topic and sentiment analysis. A key novelty of the work is that I consider multiple correlated styles in a single model. Next, I consider a variety of tasks that are relevant to style, in particular tasks relevant to genre and demographic variables, showing that the use of lexical resources compares well to more traditional approaches, in some cases offering information that is simply not available to a system based on surface features. Finally, I focus in on a single stylistic task, Native Language Identification (NLI), offering a novel method for deriving lexical information from native language texts, and using a cross-corpus supervised approach to show definitively that lexical features are key to high performance on this task.

The role of the lexicon has been ignored or minimized in most work on computational stylistics. This research is an effort to fill that gap, demonstrating the key role that the lexicon plays in stylistic variation. In doing so, I bring together a number of diverse perspectives, including aesthetic, functional, and sociological aspects of style. The first major contribution of the thesis is the creation of aesthetic stylistic lexical resources from large mixed-register corpora, adapting statistical techniques from approaches to topic and sentiment analysis. A key novelty of the work is that I consider multiple correlated styles in a single model. Next, I consider a variety of tasks that are relevant to style, in particular tasks relevant to genre and demographic variables, showing that the use of lexical resources compares well to more traditional approaches, in some cases offering information that is simply not available to a system based on surface features. Finally, I focus in on a single stylistic task, Native Language Identification (NLI), offering a novel method for deriving lexical information from native language texts, and using a cross-corpus supervised approach to show definitively that lexical features are key to high performance on this task.

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In this inquiry, I examine how six repatriated students from China perceive their experiences in Japanese schools and in Japanese second language education. I focus on their voices and perspectives gained through audio-taped interviews. Employing Pierce's (1995) concept of investment and Rampton's (1990) concepts of language expertise, affiliation, and inheritance, I focus on how these adolescent students perceive the relationship between languages and identities and how their experiences affect their ways of looking at themselves. The data I collected through interviews in Japan supports the views that identity is multiple and fluid, and languages are profoundly and intricately related with learners' identity construction. Depending on their particular contexts in which they situate themselves, they hold distinct views on the relationship between languages and identities. I address how the particular context in Japan's educational system may influence their ways of looking at themselves. The study confirms that teachers need to examine our students' identities and frames of reference, values and beliefs.

Provides an overview of work on the effects of Quebec French (QF) on Quebec English (QE) since 1977. Argues that the framework used by sociolinguists is too narrow methodologically, excluding conversations in English between people whose first languages are different and ignoring the deliberate use of language for political effect. Examines some cognate nouns to show how meanings in QE have shifted because of knowledge of QF.

This dissertation presents studies of a socially highly relevant text category, local radio broadcasts. The language of news programmes in particular from three local radio stations - Radio Gotland, Radio Väs­terbotten and Radio Östergötland - has been studied in the light of the intentions behind the introduction of local radio, and the ambitions expressed by the radio people involved. Different factors for analysis and description of local radio language are presented and used in an empirical study of broadcasts from the three stations. Both regional and national variations and differences are taken into consideration. Language and context are analyzed on separate levels: complete news texts, sentences and clauses, words and phonemes. The methods vary from a pragmatic text-typology analysis to a syntactic study based on modern spoken language research. Particular consideration is given to the aspect of local radio language that establishes contact with listeners - greetings, forms of address, and studio talk between items. A receiver-oriented perspective is used to interpret the results - the concept communicative distance, that is to say the distance between the listener and the medium that she/he feels there is on the basis of the language used in the programmes. A demonstrable pattern has been found in the relations between extra- and intra-linguistic factors and what in this study is termed the communicative distance. Compared with that of national radio, the commuicative distance of local radio language tends to be somewhat less. Of the three local radio stations Radio Gotland tends to have the least and Radio Västerbotten the greatest. The book concludes with three perspectives on further research. / digitalisering@umu

This qualitative inquiry describes the linguistic perspectives of eighteen grade six students at Ecole Duncan, a multiethnic primary school (grades K-6) located in Park Extension, an inner-city neighbourhood of Montreal. Employing standard tools of ethnographic enquiry, such as interviews and participant observation, I examined the childrens' perception of the interplay of language and identity, and rooted the inquiry within the theoretical framework of social constructivist learning. The key element of the lived experiences of these children that surface in the data is that their perceptions and experiences are largely determined by a sense of belonging and opportunities to participate in the life of their communities. I conceptualize students' language learning as a social practice, and identity as being socially constructed, contradictory, and subject to change over time. Rampton's concepts of expertise, affiliation and inheritance are used in the theoretical framework. The major assumption of this study is that social factors influence children's identities, which has a reciprocal effect upon their language learning. This inquiry has implications for policy makers, educators and families.

<p>This thesis aims to explore the ways in which space patterns regimes of language use and language attitudes among Cameroonian immigrant children in a primary school in Cape Town. The presence of migrants in any classroom represents a significant challenge from the theoretical as well as practical point of view, given that schools are responsible for both socialization and learning (Gajo &amp / Mondada 1996). Most African countries are going through large-scale migration from rural to urban areas as well as increasing transnational migration due to recent socio-economic and socio-political trends. These flows affect the sociolinguistic economy of the places concerned, not only the individuals within them. Thus immigrants&rsquo / movement into an urban area not only affects their repertoires, as they find themselves confronted with the task of acquiring the communicative resources of the autochthonous population, but also those of the autochthonous population who find themselves confronted with linguistic communicative processes and resources &lsquo / alien&rsquo / to their environment. Similar effects are felt by local educational and other institutions, now faced with learners with widely varying degrees of competence in the required communicative skills. The participants in this study are a group of young migrants from Cameroon where English and French are the two official languages. These learners already have some languages in their repertoire, which may include their mother tongue or either of the two official languages. My focus will be on the multilingual resources of these learners and how they make use of these in the daily life of their new spaces, the school, the homes and community spaces, to construct new social identities.</p>

This thesis has a dual focus viz. language attitudes and code-switching behaviour of facilitators and learners in the Key Learning Area of Language, Literacy and Communication (LLC), in the senior phase (more specifically Grades 8 and 9), Outcomes-Based Education (OBE) classroom. The schools that form the basis of this study are an Afrikaans medium school (comprising predominantly Afrikaans native language (NL) speakers); an English medium school (comprising both English NL and Zulu NL speakers); and a school that claims to be an English medium school, but where, in reality, the language of learning and teaching (for its predominantly Zulu NL speakers) is English-Zulu CS. These schools were specifically selected because the linguistic ethos of each is distinctly different from each other and because each may be distinguished as exNED1, exHOD2 and exDET3 schools as a result of the separatist principles of the government prior to 1994. This study, firstly, investigates the attitudes of school stake-holders viz. educators, subject advisors, parent component of the school governing body (SGB) and Grade 8 and 9 learners, toward the three principal languages i.e. English, Afrikaans and isiZulu, offered for study at Kwazulu Natal (KZN) schools, more specifically in Port Shepstone, the lower south coast of KZN. It also investigates the attitudes of the school stake-holders toward code-switching (CS). The methods I employed in collecting the data for determining attitudes toward the three languages and CS between these languages are questionnaires and interviews. An analysis of the data reveals that, for the participants of this research: (i) English is the most prestigious and coveted language and is the preferred medium of instruction for English NL and Zulu NL speakers; (ii) Afrikaans and Zulu are both perceived as "low-languages" but are greatly valued by their respective indigenous speakers mostly because they endow them with a sense of identity; and (iii) Zulu is the preferred additional language by English NL speakers. In addition, an analysis of the data reveals that the participants have mixed attitudes toward CS: (i) a few see code-switching as a degenerative form of linguistic behaviour that hinders learning; (ii) a few perceive it positively with the view that it fulfills a variety of functions in both informal and formal domains; and (iii) most attach a neutral value to it, in that, depending on the 'wheres' and 'whys' and how often it is used, code-switching can either promote or hinder learning. This study shows that most of the participants of this study hold neutral views toward CS thus indicating a shift in attitudes toward this form of linguistic behaviour i.e. from mostly negative to neutral views. Secondly, in investigating whether CS is used in the LLC English (LLCE) [Ll], LLCE [L2], and LLC Afrikaans (LLCA) [L2] classrooms by means of lesson recordings, the data reveals that: (i) the facilitator of the LLCE [Ll] classroom of the English medium school does not make use of CS in her classroom but that the Zulu speaking learners use CS during group-work; (ii) the facilitator and learners of LLCE [L2] of the Afrikaans medium school do not make use of CS because it is proscribed at the school; (iii) the Zulu NL facilitator and learners of LLCE [L2] make use of English-Zulu CS; and (iv) the English NL speaking facilitators and learners of LLCA [L2] use Afrikaans-English CS, and the Zulu NL speaking facilitators and learners of LLCA [L2] use Afrikaans-English-Zulu CS as the medium of teaching and learning. This study also examines the forms and functions of English-Zulu CS, Afrikaans-English CS and Afrikaans-English-Zulu CS by bilingual and multilingual teachers and learners. An analysis of data obtained from lesson recordings reveals that the facilitators and learners engage in various forms of CS behaviour in their teaching and discussing, respectively. These forms are: intersentential switching, intrasentential switching, lexical switching and tag switching. Through an analysis of data obtained from the lesson recordings, this research also reveals that the use of CS fulfills social, psychological and pedagogical functions. Code-switching therefore claims a legitimate place as a teaching and learning agent in the LLC, senior phase, OBE classroom. As such, I argue that CS is not demonstrative of language incompetence, nor is it necessarily an interlanguage but a linguistic code that may be employed as a powerful teaching and learning resource by those who have the linguistic repertoire to do so. Finally, I explore the implications of this research for principals, teachers and SGB members, L2 teachers and teaching, and teaching methodology. I suggest that there is a need for the education role-players to engage in consciousness raising as the language policy documents clearly accord CS official status, particularly in the OBE curriculum, and more importantly, because CS is a reality in the classroom. In addition, I suggest that by employing CS in the teaching of languages, learning is enhanced, language communicative competence is promoted, and the achievement of the specific outcomes outlined for LLC by OBE curriculum are facilitated. Furthermore, in exploring the implications for methodology, I argue that CS can be used consciously, as a technique for teaching and learning. Lastly, I suggest that if the Department of Education is committed to promoting multilingualism among its learners, then it should make the necessary financial resources available to schools. / Thesis (Ph.D.)-University of Natal, Durban, 2003.

This dissertation explores the sociolinguistic dynamics and challenges facing African learners in some multiracial schools in KwaZulu-Natal in terms of their linguistic and cultural identities. It seeks to investigate the impact of schooling in multiracial schools on the identities of young Zulu speakers living in Sundumbili Township in Northern KwaZulu-Natal. Three formerly HOD schools in Stanger were identified as research sites, and 100 Grade 11 learners selected as respondents. Data was collected by a multi-method approach, through a written questionnaire, and through interviews with a sub-group of the respondents. Data analysis involved both qualitative and quantitative processes. The findings indicate that the learners investigated have responded to the challenges posed by their schooling in a multiracial environment by developing into bilingual speakers who are aware of the need to select their language according to the communicative needs of their context. They seem well able to shift from school to the township and vice versa. However it is clear that some are no longer fully proficient in isiZulu. At the same time, these learners still identify themselves as amaZulu, primarily on the basis of participating in Zulu cultural activities. The role of language in constituting Zulu identity appears to be receding: many respondents feel that speaking isiZulu is no longer essential to being amaZulu. These attitudes raise some concerns about the long-term maintenance of isiZulu. The thesis concludes with some recommendations aimed at enhancing the continued use of isiZulu. The Department of Education must ensure that all schools promote an additive form of bilingualism which will enable a child to develop in his/her mother tongue while getting exposure to an additional language. Furthermore economic value must be given to these African languages to enable learners to find meaning in studying and using them. Multiracial schools should celebrate diversity in both linguistic and cultural terms, and parents should come to accept the important roles that they need to play in this regard. / Thesis (M.A.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, 2005.