http://hdl.handle.net/10468/885 2017-10-29T22:04:54Z 2017-10-29T22:04:54Z Alghizzi, Talal Musaed http://hdl.handle.net/10468/4815 2017-09-26T18:00:17Z 2017-01-01T00:00:00Z

Complexity, accuracy, and fluency (CAF) development in L2 writing: the effects of proficiency level, learning environment, text type, and time among Saudi EFL learners Alghizzi, Talal Musaed The purpose of this longitudinal exploratory research is to investigate the influence of four factors: proficiency levels, text types, times, and learning environments on the writing complexity, accuracy, and fluency of Saudi students majoring in the English language. Specifically, the study seeks to determine how and when the CAF constructs and sub-constructs of low- and high-proficiency Saudi EFL undergraduates in three learning contexts: traditional learning context (TLC), blended learning context (BLC), and online learning contexts (OLC), are affected longitudinally across two writing tasks (classification and argumentative) that differed in their level of complexity. Also, it intends to specify when and which of the three learning contexts: TLC, BLC, and OLC, will lead to the most/least increases or decreases in the CAF constructs and sub-constructs of the low- and high-proficiency Saudi EFL undergraduates across the two composition tasks. To answer such questions, 75 Saudi EFL university students were recruited from the pool of two proficiency levels (low and high). Six groups of equal number of students were generated from dividing randomly the 45 Low-proficiency participants and the 30 high-proficiency participants. Each of these groups was exposed to one of the previously mentioned learning contexts and undertook three tests: pre-test, mid-term test, and post-test. The 450 students’ writings were analyzed according to 45 measures of CAF constructs and sub-constructs and by using two statistical tests: t-test and ANOVA. For the first question, the t-test results showed that the similarities and differences of effect on CAF constructs between the two writing tasks were observed to be group-specific as they were based on the proficiency levels, learning contexts, and timescales (i.e., short term and long term). In other words, depending on whether a construct in the two text types was influenced similarly or differently, such influence did not generally occur in a systematic way and across the same number and types of metrics for the same group, or even across the groups of the same or different proficiency levels in the short term and long term. The findings only lent partial support to Skehan and Foster’s Limited Attentional Capacity Model and Robinson’s Multiple Attentional Resources Model since some constructs increased (e.g., accuracy, lexical variation, and syntactic complexity) or decreased (e.g., lexical density, lexical sophistication, lexical variation, syntactic complexity, and fluency). There were many other cases which were beyond the predictions of the aforementioned researchers and their explanations on how the students’ attention is deployed while performing the complex task(s). For instance, altering task complexity led some constructs to remain unaffected (e.g., syntactic complexity, lexical density, lexical sophistication, lexical variation, accuracy, and fluency), equal increases and decreases or only increases (e.g., fluency), increases more than decreases (e.g., lexical variation), less increases (e.g., accuracy), or less/more decreases (e.g., syntactic complexity and lexical sophistication). In terms of the second question, the ANOVA test results indicated mixed findings because each of the three learning environments resulted in benefits in some ways. In the two proficiency levels, the TLC, BLC, and OLC had the same level of success/unsuccess in enhancing all the measures of some CAF constructs in both writing tasks in the short term and long term. Nevertheless, in the other CAF constructs, there was no uniform linear development or deterioration of all measures across the six groups. In each of these constructs, the differences between these groups emerged from one or more measures, but not from all measures. Each of these learning contexts stood alone in being the most or least successful in increasing some constructs. Nonetheless, this was dependent on the participants’ proficiency levels, text types, and timescales. This study provides several pedagogical implications and recommendations for academic research, EFL writing instructors at pre-university and university levels, and task-based investigators.

2017-01-01T00:00:00Z Alsadi, Wejdan M. http://hdl.handle.net/10468/3813 2017-03-22T19:01:07Z 2016-01-01T00:00:00Z

A multimodal analysis of the rhetorical devices used for meaning-making and humour in Saudi media cartoons Alsadi, Wejdan M. This study is an attempt to push forward research on cartoons and humour in the Saudi context which has little scholarly attention. It is further a contribution to the growing multimodal research on non-interactional humour in the media that benefits from the traditional theories of verbal humour. The study analysed the ways visual and verbal modes interact, highlighting the multimodal manifestations of the rhetorical devices frequently employed to create meaning and humour in 202 English-language cartoons collected from the Saudi media. The five key findings relate to three areas of focus addressed in the research questions: the role of theme in the format of verbal language included in the cartoons and in the frequency of the rhetorical devices and semiotic resources employed in the cartoons, the ways frequent devices are manifested across the visual and verbal modes, and the social and cultural insights into Saudi society. The cartoons were thematically classified into four major categories: gender and family issues, social phenomena and problems, educational and technological issues, and economy and prices. The study found that theme plays a role in the verbal format and in the frequency of the devices in each category. The multimodal analysis shows that the frequent rhetorical devices such as allusions, parody, metaphor, metonymy, juxtaposition, and exaggeration take a form which is woven between the visual and verbal modes and which sometimes makes the production of humorous and satirical effect more unique and interesting. The analysis of metaphor and metonymy specifically contributes to the recently established link between multimodality and cognitive linguistics. Different aspects of constructing creative multimodal metaphors for triggering satirical effect are highlighted. The interaction between multimodal metaphors and multimodal metonymies reveals further complexities underlying humour as a phenomenon in the multimodal representation.

2016-01-01T00:00:00Z Alsubhi, Aeshah Saadi http://hdl.handle.net/10468/3937 2017-05-10T18:00:16Z 2016-01-01T00:00:00Z

Gender and metadiscourse in British and Saudi newspaper column writing: male/female and native/non-native differences in language use Alsubhi, Aeshah Saadi The topic of gender differences has proved to be a popular line of inquiry for researchers for decades, and the recent growing interest in the pervasive phenomenon of metadiscourse makes it a major domain in the research of discourse analysis and corpus-based analyses. This study extends the investigation of gender and metadiscourse to newspaper opinion columns. The study seeks to explore both gender and metadiscourse in media texts by analyzing a corpus of British and Saudi opinion columns. Using corpus-linguistics techniques, the study aims to investigate gender differences in the writings of men and women columnists regarding their use of metadiscourse and selected linguistic and stylistic features. Drawing on Hyland’s (2005) model of metadiscourse, the study further aims to compare the use of metadiscourse markers among both columnists in order to identify which categories predominate in this type of discourse and how they are distributed according to cultural preferences. The corpus consists of 320 opinion columns totaling 273,773 words, selected from four elite newspapers. The columns were searched electronically using concordancing software programs and then all the metadiscourse devices were examined qualitatively in context to determine their actual functions. All frequencies reported have been normalized and tested statistically. Results confirmed that there were 33,854 metadiscourse tokens in the corpus, an average of 105.49 occurrences per column or 3 elements of metadiscourse in every 25 words in each of the two corpora. Findings revealed both male and female columnists showed more similarities than differences in their overall use of metadiscourse especially in the interactive dimension. In spite of that, some significant gender-based variations in the use of interactional dimension of metadiscourse were also found. Female columnists used more self-mentions, engagement markers, adjectives, pronouns, and adverbs than their male counterparts, and tended to adopt a personalized engaging subjective style that relies on personal experiences. In contrast, male columnists used more hedges, verbs, numerical terms, and swear words, and tended to adopt a more factual informative style. In addition, results revealed that both columnists made use of interactive and interactional metadiscourse, and some statistically significant variations in the amount and type of metadiscourse were reported. The study concludes that metadiscourse is a useful concept in the discourse of opinion columns and that gender is a significant source of variation that influences the linguistic and the stylistic choices of opinion columnists along with the genre’s conventions.

2016-01-01T00:00:00Z Theuerkauf, Marie-Luise http://hdl.handle.net/10468/2071 2016-10-17T15:22:37Z 2015-01-01T00:00:00Z

The Celtic dragon slayer - a literary analysis of Tochmarc Emire in connection with Tristan et Iseut Theuerkauf, Marie-Luise As Celtic scholars have long noted, the medieval Irish tale Tochmarc Emire “The Courtship of Emer” is heavily indebted to other medieval Irish texts. In this tale of courtship and otherworldly quests, the Irish hero Cú Chulainn must prove himself worthy of the hand of the noblewoman Emer. Among his overseas adventures, Cú Chulainn rescues a princess from three attackers of the Fomoire. This episode may represent the only medieval Irish example of AT300 “The Dragon Slayer”, a story pattern known from classical models such as the stories of Perseus and Andromeda; and Hercules and Hesione. Moreover, in the company of Cú Chulainn we find a character otherwise unknown to Irish tradition by the name of Drust mac Seirb. This has led scholars to argue that Tochmarc Emire may preserve a Celtic precursor of the Continental Tristan legend, seeing in Drust the Pictish origin of the character Tristan, himself a famous dragon slayer. In this interdisciplinary dissertation, a number of questions are addressed. If the redactor of Tochmarc Emire drew on material from outside Irish tradition, what does this tell us about medieval Irish concepts of literature and genre? Further, what evidence do we have for tracing the origin of the Continental Tristan legend back to Pictland, and what explanation might we offer for a putative Pictish prince featuring in an Irish Dragon Slayer story? Finally, what place does the Dragon Slayer episode occupy within Tochmarc Emire and can we find other narratives, Celtic or classical or other, fitting the pattern of AT300, which may strengthen the link between Tochmarc Emire and Tristan?

2015-01-01T00:00:00Z