http://theses.ncl.ac.uk/jspui/handle/10443/68 2026-04-21T16:25:42Z http://theses.ncl.ac.uk/jspui/handle/10443/6720 Title: The Effects of Ethnicity, Contact, Sense of Identity, and Social Attitudes on Dialect Contact in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia Authors: Alali, Sultan Ebrahem Abstract: Dialect contact may lead to one of several linguistic outcomes, including (among others) levelling, accommodation, divergence, or convergence. Jeddah presents a unique linguistic situation in Saudi Arabia due to it being one of the three cities, along with Makkah and Madinah, which have a large Saudi non-Bedouin demographic. Given that Bedouin and non-Bedouin social groups are technically in daily contact in Jeddah, this urgent research question arises: do the marked linguistic features of each group weaken or perhaps even level out? Thus, this thesis investigates the dialect contact situation in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, specifically how it affects the distinct varieties of Hijazi Arabic spoken by Bedouins and non-Bedouins in the city. This study investigates the influence of ethnicity, dialect contact, sense of identity, and social attitudes on variation in Hijazi Arabic in a sample of 32 young adult speakers (aged 19-22) in Jeddah. The sample was stratified by Bedouin versus non-Bedouin ethnic background and grouped by neighbourhood type: predominantly Bedouin, predominantly non-Bedouin, and mixed. Data were collected through sociolinguistic interviews and written questionnaires measuring participants’ sense of identity and social attitudes. The analysis focuses on three linguistic variables: (θ), (ð), and the third-person masculine pronoun (-ah). Distributional and regression analyses show that Bedouin and non-Bedouin Jeddawis belong to different speech communities because those in mixed and unmixed neighbourhoods (both Bedouins and non-Bedouins) do not share linguistic norms. Moreover, for a speech community to exist, there needs to be constant contact and interactions among its members, which cannot be said about the Bedouin and Non-Bedouin neighbourhoods. At the same time, the analyses show that the four social predictors (ethnicity, dialect contact, sense of identity, and social attitudes) affect two of the three linguistic variables: (θ) and the third-person masculine pronoun (-ah). Since the type of neighbourhood acts as a proxy for the degree of contact between Bedouins and non-Bedouins, the findings suggest that the degree of contact between the two groups affects the variation of the (θ) and (-ah). The variants of both (θ) and (-ah) in the two unmixed neighbourhoods (Bedouin and non-Bedouin) remain distinct from one another due to lack of contact. On the other hand, those in mixed neighbourhoods behaved linguistically as a one speech community and used competing variants at similar rates regardless of individuals' ethnic backgrounds. The results additionally show that there is a correlation between both sense of identity and social attitudes and the variables studied. Participants with a strong sense of identity favoured variants associated with their ethnic group. In contrast, those with a weak sense of identity used the variant associated with the other ethnic group. The same was found regarding attitudes: those with positive attitudes towards the other group exhibited higher rates of use of the variants associated with the ethnic group they do not belong to, and those who had negative attitudes exhibited little to no use of the variants associated with the other group. My results highlight the emergence of a supra-local Arabic variety in Jeddah wherein the urban marked [t] and [d] lose their distinctiveness in favour of the mainstream features [θ] and [ð] in the mixed neighbourhood. The results also suggest that they do so due to their markedness and association with the non-Bedouin demographic in Jeddah specifically and Hijaz as a whole. The results also show the levelling of the Bedouin 3rd person masculine suffix in the mixed neighbourhood in favour of an urban variant, unlike the phonological ones due to its disassociation with non-Bedouins. Description: IPhD Thesis 2025-01-01T00:00:00Z http://theses.ncl.ac.uk/jspui/handle/10443/6672 Title: An investigation into the effects of applying the activities of communicative language teaching approach on English learners’ speaking skills in Libya Authors: Karaim, Nedal Omran Abdulsalam Abstract: The central research question guiding this study is as follows: ‘To what extent do specific Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) activities enhance the speaking skills of university students compared to Grammar Translation Method?’. In the Libyan context, studies such as Alhmali (2007) and Orafi and Borg (2009) have investigated English language teaching, yet there has been limited emphasis on enhancing the speaking skills of Libyan English language learners. The significant gap in research on enhancing the speaking skills of Libyan English language learners is underscored by the considerable challenges they face in developing speaking proficiency, primarily due to an education system traditionally focused on grammar and a lack of exposure to spoken English in daily life. The combination of a GTM-focused educational approach and limited exposure to English creates a significant barrier for Libyan learners aspiring to achieve speaking proficiency. To address the gap identified by Richards and Rodgers (2014) suggest that CLT activities can enhance learners' speaking skills. Therefore, this study explores the impact of CLT activities specifically problem-solving and role-play on Libyan learners' speaking skills. The study hypothesizes that learners exposed to CLT activities will improve their speaking abilities more than those taught using the Grammar Translation Method (GTM). Using an experimental design, data from 45 participants were analysed over six weeks. Participants were divided into three groups: a control group using GTM, and two experimental groups engaged in CLT activities one focusing on role-play and the other on problem-solving. The study employs pre- and post-tests to assess speaking proficiency, measuring fluency, accuracy, and vocabulary use. The control group followed GTM instruction, while the experimental groups practiced CLT activities, with the role-play group simulating real-life situations and the problem-solving group tackling communicative challenges through collaboration and verbal interaction. The outcomes of the analysis reveal that all groups improved between pre- and post-tests. The CLT role-play and CLT problem-solving groups showed greater improvements than the GTM control group, with the overall largest improvement observed in the CLT role-play group, across all measures of speaking skills studied in this research. Description: PhD Thesis 2025-01-01T00:00:00Z http://theses.ncl.ac.uk/jspui/handle/10443/6632 Title: Overgeneralisation in L2 morphosyntax and the role of alphabetic literacy Authors: Alsulami, Abdulelah Wazen Abstract: The study is aimed firstly to examine the role of literacy in adult immigrant learners’ development of English morphosyntax using the stages of Organic Grammar (or OG). Literacy—from the perspective of generative linguistics—is not thought to have a direct influence on the development of syntax. This does not mean that it plays no role in the acquisition of certain aspects of functional morphology, and emerging research on oral production of non/low-educated/literate learners shows some connection between literacy and the development of morphosyntax. To achieve this aim, 60 participants (with varying levels of literacy and amounts of native language schooling) were recruited to participate in a study. Data were collected through production tasks (picture descriptions) and comprehension tasks (computerized tasks). The results show that the developmental path of acquisition is systematic. There is a positive connection between literacy and the acquisition of morphosyntax. The second aim is to further explore learners’ overgeneralisation of functional mor- phemes (the use of non-target function words or multi-word utterances) during the acqui- sition of second language (L2) English morphosyntax and to confirm the specific Organic Grammar stage of L2 morphosyntax development at which L2 learners engage in such an overgeneralisation. The results indicate that: (1) overgeneralisation occurs after the Verb Phrase (VP) stage. (2) Overgeneralisation does not alter the general developmen- tal path of acquisition (i.e., the stages of Organic Grammar). (3) Overgeneralisation can involve morphemes, words, and multi-word sequences. (4) Overgeneralised forms are placeholders that learners temporarily use as they work on identifying the relevant heads in the input. (5) the use of certain function words (as placeholders) seems to be peculiar to the VP-stage learners, and higher OG-stage learners use different types of place-hold- ers (e.g., the copula be or personal pronouns), thereby supporting the recent predictions of placeholders through the stages of Organic Grammar. Description: Ph. D. Thesis. 2024-01-01T00:00:00Z http://theses.ncl.ac.uk/jspui/handle/10443/6473 Title: Speaking to reading in English : investigating the relationship between prosody and reading comprehension with Year 3 children Authors: Miller, Sheradan Christopher James Abstract: Prosody is often described as the melody of language, and an important linguistic feature to comprehend speech. However, there is a lack of research investigating the relationship between prosody and reading comprehension with children learning to read. Prosody was measured with the PEPS-C 2015 (Peppé, 2015), and investigated in relationship with measures of reading comprehension. This relationship was also analysed with measures representing the aspects of The Simple View of Reading as control variables, which have been well-evidenced as predictors of reading comprehension in prior research. The project worked with 51 children aged between seven and eight in a primary school in the North-East of England. The results suggested that in agreement with previous research prosody does contribute to reading comprehension ability, though this relationship is altered by the presence of the components of the SVR. The exploratory simple mediation analyses further reinforced this. We concluded that children’s understanding and use of prosody in our study was predictive of reading comprehension ability on the tasks. The current project is limited by the cross-sectional design, making conclusions about the causal impact of prosody on reading comprehension not feasible at this time. Further research should follow the relationship between prosody and reading comprehension through a longitudinal study, and could utilise alternative methods (e.g. eye-tracking) to assess more fine-grained aspects of this relationship. Description: PhD Thesis 2023-01-01T00:00:00Z