This thesis begins with a sociolinguistic correlational study of three phonetic variables - (h), (t) and (ing) - as used by four occupational groups - nurses, chefs, hairdressers and taxi-drivers. The groups were selected to incorporate three independent variables: sex (male-dominated versus female-dominated occupations); training (length and specialisation - nurses and chefs being more specialised than hairdressers and taxi-drivers) and location (the populations were selected from two cities - Liverpool and Birmingham). Although the correlational work demonstrates intra-sex and occupation consistency in speakers' choice of linguistic variants (females (particularly nurses) being significantly closer to the prestige norm), it is essentially non-explanatory and cannot accout for narrative dynamics and style shift. Therefore, an in-depth qualitative examination of the data (which draws mainly on Narrative and Discourse Analysis) forms the major part of the analysis. The study first analyses features common to all the narratives, direct speech, expressive phonology and linguistic ambiguity emerging as characteristic of all humorous storytelling. Secondly, three major sources of inter-personal variation are invetigated: narrator perspective, sex and occuptational role. Perspective is found to vary with topic and personality, greater narrator involvement coinciding with a higher proportion of internal evaluation devices. Sex differences include topic choice and bonding in the storytelling sessions. Sex differences are also evident in style shifting, where the narrator mimics the voice of a character in the narrative (aodpting segmental and/or prosodic tokens to signal a change of persona). The research finds that female narrators rarely employ segmental accommodation downwards on the social scale (whereas men do), but are on the other hand adept at using prosodic effects for mimicry. Taxi-drivers emerge as the group with the most distinctive narrative flair, a fact which is related to their occupation. The conclusion stresses a need for both quantitative and qualitative approaches to data; the importance of occupational role, as opposed to sex role per se in determining narrative conventions; the view of narrative as a negotiable entity, which is the product of relationships among participants; and the importance of considering the totality of the communicative act.

The Chinese are the third largest non-indigenous ethnic minority in Britain, but have hitherto figured little in sociolinguistic research. The aim of this thesis is to examine patterns of language choice by three generations of Chinese/English bilingual speakers in the Chinese community on Tyneside in the North East of England. The data for this analysis is collected within a broadly ethnographic framework, with attention to particularly relevant aspects of Chinese culture and informal social organisation. Specific issues investigated in the thesis include: i) degree and patterning of (Chinese/English) bilingualism within the Tyneside Chinese community; ii) strategies whereby people employ two different languages in conversational interaction; .iii) social mechanisms underlying language choice at both the community and interactional level. As well as providing systematic and a substantial amount of empirical data, the thesis aims to develop a social model, utilising the concept of social network, which can account for the relationship between code-switching and language choice by individual speakers, and for the relation of both to the broader social, economic and political context. Thus, while the exposition is presented primarily with reference to the example of the Tyneside Chinese community, it is intended to be applicable to a range of bilingual situations as well as Chinese communities elsewhere.

<p> The aim of this study is to reveal and analyze language ideologies and stereotypes associated with the three main regional dialects of Saudi Arabia: Najdi, Hijazi, and Janoubi. The research questions were &ldquo;How do Saudi speakers with different educational levels perceive other regional dialects?&rdquo; and &ldquo;Does experience and exposure to other dialects play a role in terms of their perception?&rdquo; Since college students typically have more opportunities to interact with speakers of different dialects, I hypothesized that their evaluations of other dialects would be different from high school students&rsquo; perspectives. The study participants consisted of 66 college subjects and 69 high school subjects; they came from different regional backgrounds.&nbsp;Lambert's&nbsp;Matched-Guise Test (1960) was implemented in order to examine the language attitudes toward&nbsp;these dialects. Interviews were also conducted to probe participants&rsquo; reasons and justifications for their judgments and opinions and also to support statistical findings. I found significant difference between college and high school subjects in the measures of five items. High school subjects tended to have a hard time guessing the speaker&rsquo;s background, which indicates they lack awareness of other dialects. College participants also applied more positive adjectives to Hijazi and Najdi speakers. On the other hand, high school subjects tended to judge the Hijazi speaker as a very slow speaker. In the interviews, I found that college interviewees tended to provide more details than high school interviewees, which showed college participants are more aware of other dialects. This study tried to determine whether or not discriminatory attitudes existed among the participants.&nbsp;The results indicate that certain dialect speakers could be judged negatively based on which dialect they speak, and that there are implications for their social and work lives. This study may help scholars better understand some of the language ideologies held by high school and college students in Saudi Arabia.</p>

Gay and lesbian prides and marches are of crucial relevance to the way in which non-heterosexual lives are imagined internationally despite regional and national differences. Quite often, these events are connected not only with increased activist mobilisation, but also with great controversy, which is the case of Poland, where gay and lesbian marches have been attacked by right-wing protesters and cancelled by right-wing city authorities on a number of occasions. Overall, the scholars analysing these events have largely focused on the macro-context of the marches, paying less attention to the movement actors behind these events. The contribution of this thesis lies not only in filling a gap when it comes to research on sexual minorities in Eastern Europe/Poland, but also in its focus on micro-level movement processes and engagement with theories of collective identity and citizenship. Furthermore, this thesis challenges the inscription of Eastern European/Polish movements into the narrative of victimhood and delayed development when compared to LGBT movements in the Global North. This thesis is grounded in qualitative research including participant observation of public activist events as well as forty semi-structured interviews with the key organisers of gay and lesbian marches in Warsaw, Poznan and Krakow between 2001 and 2007, and five of these interviews were further accompanied by photo-elicitation (self-directed photography) methods. Starting from the processes whereby from 2001 onwards, marches, pride parades and demonstrations became the most visible and contested activity of the Polish lesbian and gay movement, this thesis examines how the activists redefined the meanings of citizenship in the post-transformation context, by incorporating the theme of sexual minorities' rights. Using Bernstein's (1997, 2002, 2005, 2008) concept of identity deployment, I show how and when movement actors use identity tactically, depending on their goals. Specifically, in the context of movement-media interactions, I examine the ways in which the activists use marches to challenge the negative representations of sexual minorities in Poland. I also broaden Bernstein's framework to include the discussion of emotion work as relevant to public LGBT activism in Poland. Later, I discuss how the emotions of protests allowed the activists to inscribe their efforts into the "revolutionary" narrative of the Polish Solidarity movement and by extension, the frame of citizenship. Finally, this thesis engages with the dilemmas of identity deployment strategies, and seeks to problematise the dichotomy between identity-based gay and lesbian assimilationist strategies and the anti-identity queer politics.

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Thesis (B.A.(Hons.))--University of Adelaide, Dept. of Psychology, 1978.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Edinburgh, 1978. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 332-347).