This study formalizes and compares two major hypotheses in speakers' choices of referring expressions: the topicality model that chooses a form based on the topicality of the referent, and the rational model that chooses a form based on the informativity of the form and its speech cost. Simulations suggest that both the topicality of the referent…

According to linguistic theory, conversational Implicature (CI) is the original intent of the speech expressed by a speaker. The assumption is that both the speaker and the receiver understand and respect the communication rules. In conversation theory, this is the significant component that has been the subject of discussion. This study…

The goal of research was to achieve a deep comprehension of English speech acts of illocutionary force. The method applied was ethnography of communication. In relation with an approach, I applied the qualitative one. In the data collection procedures, I applied the ethnography method, i.e. field observation, recording, transcription, interview,…

Teaching discourses essentially presuppose the use of rhetoric. This study that doubly registers as EFL Research and Communication Research draws on the Theory of Discourse Analysis and Rhetoric Theory of Communication to investigate rhetoric undertones in the teaching discourses of EFL (English as a Foreign Language) teachers engaged in online…

Conversation Analysis (CA) has established repair (Schegloff, Jefferson & Sacks 1977; Schegloff 1979; Kitzinger 2013) as a conversational mechanism for managing contingencies of talk-in-interaction. In this dissertation, I look at a particular sort of "repair" termed TCU-continuations (or otherwise known increments in other…

The study of teaching translation has always been influenced by the theory of foreign language teaching, regardless of the theoretical or practical approaches the researchers used. In the classroom, students are frequently bored with translating grammar because they are seldom taught how grammar works. In view of this teaching gap, this study…

This dissertation is a mixed-methods ethnographic study of students in the introductory class in the Engineering & Computer Science (ECS) department at University of California, Davis (UC Davis). I collected audio-recorded natural speech and questionnaire data from students attending this course during two academic quarters, Fall 2016 and…

This longitudinal study examines the acquisition of tense and agreement morphology by child L2 learners in an early stage of language acquisition. The objectives of this study are twofold. The first is to observe the development of verb inflections and syntactic competence over time from an early stage by Chinese child L2 learners of English. The…

This paper reconsiders the theoretical concept of "identity slippage" by considering a detailed exegesis of three model conversations taught to learners of Japanese as an additional language. To inform my analysis of these conversations and how they contribute to identity slippage, I have used the work of the systemic-functional linguist Jay Lemke…

This work examines the relationship between implicit procedural and implicit verbal processes as they occur in natural adult conversation. Theoretical insights and empirical findings are rooted in a move towards integration of Bucci's "Referential Activity" (RA) and "Multiple Code" perspectives and Beebe and Jaffe's…

Discusses discourse rules and their function, as seen within different theoretical orientations toward pragmatic aspects of language. (AM)

Criticizes J.L. Austin's and J.R. Searle's claims that utterances have illocutionary force and offers an alternative account of the illocutionary aspect of utterances, which sees illocution as the way in which utterances meaningfully relate to the state of affairs in the world. (FL)

Traces in detail the development of pragmatics and its relationship to semantics. (AM)

Presents a theory of questions, in the context of pragmatics. (AM)

Attempts to analyze the paralinguistic base in the formation of verbal communications and classifies the "verbal roles" of a speaker. (CFM)