English Language and Literature (Theses)

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“There is no up!” A corpus-assisted, critical thematic analysis of perceptions of teachers in the privately-run english-language teaching sector in the Republic of Ireland
(2025-06) Tobin, Deborah
This study focusses on primary themes arising from interview and survey data discourses of English Language Teacher (ELT) participants. It reflects their evaluations and perceptions of privately-run, Irish-based, ELT school workplaces, as well as perceptions believed to be held of them by sector outsiders. Data are examined through a Corpus-Assisted, Critical Thematic Analysis lens. The research is undertaken against a backdrop of a global expansion of English as an international language, which has created increased demand for suitably qualified, experienced teachers. The ELT industry in Ireland is worth €2.3 billion per annum. Irrespective, Irish-based ELT teachers have, until recently, been something of a voiceless and invisible cohort within both ELT and the wider Irish, teaching profession. This mixed-methods study thus explores attitudes held by English-language teachers with direct experience of working in the Republic of Ireland, how teachers perceive their role within Irish-based ELT, and how workplace conditions impact this. Of key interest is metaphor that teachers use. Critical and corpus analysis of data saw motivation for entry to the sector emerge in a metaphorical ELT AS PATH, with a historical TEACHER AS BACKPACKER identity remaining pervasive in the contemporary, Irish ELT context. Thematic sector descriptions additionally found ELT AS PROFESSION consistently offset by ELT AS BUSINESS, necessitating a novel TEACHER AS ENTREPRENEUR identity. Finally, wider societal and ELT discourses saw cross-cohort language choices realised thematically and metaphorically in a sense of not being valued societally as a ‘real teacher’.
Studies on the relationship between Irish drama in the Irish literary revival and the national dramatic movement of China, mediated through translations in Japan, and through the Chinese intellectual Guo Moruo
(2024-10) Zhe, Wang
The dramatic movement of the Irish Literary Revival had a profound influence on the development of Chinese drama, especially the National Drama Movement of China. This thesis focuses on early 20th-century China, delving deeply into why The May Fourth scholars voluntarily introduced and translated Irish literature, and what motivations allowed writers, who never met, to resonate strongly in their creative and political philosophies. This study centers on two figures from each movement, J. M. Synge from the Irish dramatic movement and Guo Moruo from China’s National Drama Movement, exploring their intellectual and dramatic connection. After an introduction and a literature review, this thesis is structured into three main sections. Chapter 3 primarily analyzes Guo Moruo’s political philosophy, examining the diachronic evolution of his ideas before and after his studies in Japan. The fourth chapter discusses the introduction, translation, and adaptation of Irish literature within the Japanese academic sphere. It examines the literary image of Irish literature as understood by the Japanese academia and focuses on three Japanese writers’ adaptations of J. M. Synge. The final chapter considers the influence of various aspects of Japanese culture, politics, and religion, and examines why the Japanese adapted Synge resonated more with Guo Moruo than the original Synge, considering China’s national conditions and cultural background at the time. Finally, this chapter discusses why Guo Moruo did not fully accept the Japanese-academic-adapted Synge, in his own adaptations and his creative interpretation of Synge.
Linguistic characteristics of first-year university writing: a corpus investigation
(2025-07) Turtova, Aleksandra
This study examines the characteristics of first-year composition writing using a corpus-driven approach. The corpus analyzed, COMP 101, consists of 383 texts totaling 188,184 words. These texts include seven essay genres: descriptive, narrative, classification, process analysis, compare and contrast, cause and effect, and argumentative. Using a genre-based theoretical framework, the study explores the most common language features found in first-year writing in a typical university classroom of native and non-native English speakers and how these features are represented across the different genres. According to the corpus analysis, the most frequently used features in COMP 101 include first-person pronouns, second-person pronouns, conjunctions, and punctuation marks. The study compares these findings to academic writing represented by the British Corpus of Academic Written English (BAWE). The findings reveal how first-year students engage with readers and establish identities in their texts using first and second-person pronouns. Also, the study notes a tendency to avoid using past participles and an overall conversational tone, demonstrated by a preference for contractions, question marks, and exclamation marks. The implications of these findings for the teaching of writing in this context are then discussed.
A painted city: Belfast's tradition of public art
(2025-05) Mayer, Jeryn Woodard
A Painted City: Belfast’s Tradition of Public Art emerged out of an interest in the artistic impact of the century long tradition of political murals in the city of Belfast. The intention was to determine if the presence of the painted murals and the act of painting in public influenced the artistic production of contemporary artists. This research centres on artists and arts professionals with interviews focused primarily on the artists’ training and artistic practices. A thematic analysis of the interviews sheds light on the shared experiences of mural artists from both sides of the sectarian divide. By providing a brief history of political mural painting in Belfast, and linking that history to traditional or sanctioned murals created by trained artists, this thesis demonstrates that the political murals are an important part of the history of public art in the city. Studying the murals as examples of public art, rather than only political propaganda, further demonstrates their influence on the city’s visual culture. While Belfast’s political mural trends can be linked to public art movements by academic artists, the research shows that the self-taught political muralists have had the most significant influence on the city’s use of painted walls as an essential part of its creative identity. Discussing these influential artists using the language of art criticism validates their practices and connects them to the field of art history. The research finds that self-taught artists and especially those who create political murals have had a significant impact on younger artists working today in the contemporary Street Art movement. With government and private sector efforts to improve Belfast’s urban landscape, the continued presence of the political murals provides a visual record of the city’s past. As the city continues to manage the peace process, question of the future of the political murals is one that has yet to be answered. However, a new generation of artists have flooded the city with art in public spaces creating a dialogue between the city’s past conflicts and its hopeful future.
Decoding African narratives: a longitudinal corpus-driven critical discourse analysis of diachronic shifts in Irish media discourse (September to December 1998, 2008, and 2018)
(2025-03) Fotabong, Lylian
Scholars from non-ethnic minority backgrounds primarily examine discourses surrounding the representation of immigrants in Western media, focusing on asylum seekers, International Protection Applicants (IPA), refugees, and discrimination. Concurrently, there is a notable absence of minority representation and authorship. This study addresses the gap in the literature by employing a blend of methods from Corpus Linguistics and Critical Discourse Analysis. The Discourse Historical Approach (Wodak 2001) and van Leeuwen’s (1996) strategies of foregrounding and backgrounding analysed a self-compiled corpus dataset from The Irish Independent and The Irish Times, amounting to 3,923,355 words portraying Africans across selected periods from 1998 to 2018 The combined methods show the relationship between data triangulation, semantic prosody, and topoi argumentation analysis regarding the perpetuation of racialised power dynamics and the marginalisation of Africans in Irish media discourse. The researcher identified keywords, topoi, and themes that frequently engaged in the form of representational repression, characterised by the systematic exclusion, misrepresentation, and stereotyping of Africans. While these perspectives evolved over time, they remained consistent. Furthermore, although Irish newspapers tended to adopt more covert, negative, and exclusionary representations of Africans, The Irish Times demonstrated a greater bias in comparison to The Independent. Additionally, a new topos was identified, and a methodological synergy (Baker et al. 2008) was proposed based on manual collocation in corpora to uncover journalistic strategies. A public policy approach was suggested, emphasising how marginalised groups implement discursive practices to emancipate themselves and reduce discrimination. Implications and recommendations for future research are also included.
Gothic trauma in the work of Eugene McCabe
(2025-03-18) O’Connor, Eileen
This research analyses Eugene McCabe’s contributions to modern Irish writing by examining his engagement with three milestone events in Irish history. The study focuses on McCabe’s works in chronological order, beginning with Tales from The Poorhouse (1999), set during the Great Famine of 1845. These short stories provide a platform to explore the trauma and socioeconomic repercussions experienced by the Irish population during this devastating period. The research then delves into Death and Nightingales (1992), McCabe’s only novel, which takes place against the backdrop of the Irish Land Wars of the 1880s. Through this work, McCabe explores historical land issues, offering insights into their impact on Ireland’s history and their relevance to contemporary society. Finally, the study concludes with analyses of shorter fictions, ‘Cancer,’ ‘Heritage,’ and ‘Victims.’ These narratives are set amidst the ‘Troubles’ in Northern Ireland. This exploration allows for an examination of the trauma endured by individuals and communities affected by the conflict, and as well as McCabe’s portrayal of loss, heritage, and victimhood. In analyzing McCabe’s literary techniques, themes, and character development, this research sheds light on his treatment of historical events and their lasting influences. The study also situates McCabe’s works within their socio-political contexts, examining how they reflect or challenge prevalent narratives of Irish history. By filling the gap in scholarly research on McCabe’s oeuvre, this study contributes a comprehensive analysis of these three works, offering fresh insights into his literary engagement with Irish history. Through this investigation, a deeper understanding of trauma, historical legacies, and Irish identity emerges, further enriching the appreciation of McCabe’s contributions to modern Irish literature.
Marx and sprectres: a hauntological exploration of the poetry of Seamus Heaney through the lens of Jacques Derrida's Specters of Marx
(2024-10-11) Hickey, Ian
This thesis will examine the spectral inheritances and hauntings that dwell within the poetry of Seamus Heaney. It will use hauntology, an idea first coined by Jacques Derrida in Specters of Marx, as a way of locating and unearthing the influence of spectres over the unconscious of the poet. A sustained argument that spectres of the past haunt and influence the present and future will carry throughout the course of this thesis. It will be shown that Heaney inherits from these past spectres, be they national or international, and that these ghosts of the past haunt and influence not only Heaney’s unconscious, but Northern Irish society as a whole. The core objective of the thesis is to interrogate and analyse the continuity and repetition of the past in the present of Heaney’s work; in a historical sense but also in a personal, literary manner. The degree to which colonialism, both British and Norse, impacts upon the present will breathe life into the argument that these spectres of past colonialism not only impact upon Heaney’s use of language, his identity, and his place in the world, but also, through the workings of the Derridean spectre, influence and garner the violence that sprung forth in Northern Ireland during the Troubles. Similarly the absent presence of the bog people, Virgil, and Dante within the poetry finds Heaney inheriting, and being influenced by, wider, older, broader European mythical hauntings. The degree to which these spectres influence and repeat themselves in the poetry will culminate in the discussion of ‘Route 110’ as a poem that incorporates all of these spectres and shows the overall spectral inheritance at play within the body of Heaney’s work. This study will show that Heaney’s poetry is deeply influenced by the workings of the spectre upon the unconscious of the poet.
Anything but the ideal speaker listener in anything but a homogenous speech community: a study of communication through the medium of lingua franca English
(2024-09-09) Harrington, Kieran
This thesis characterizes the English spoken as a lingua franca by a community of asylum seekers, none of whom spoke English as a native language, and it examines how they use this lingua franca to interact with the English-speaking staff and with one another in the reception centre in which they live. The methodological tools and techniques of ethnography, corpus linguistics and conversation analysis are harnessed in a synergistic, cyclical blend. The ethnography, influenced by the work of Goffman and Hymes, highlights the troubled histories of the residents, including accounts of alleged persecution in their native countries, their flight to perceived safety in Ireland, and their new institutionalized lives, all which impacted on their daily communicative behaviour. Newly-arrived residents made a bigger effort to talk, but the routine of everyday life gradually undermined their communicative efforts. However, this routine and daily social practice also led to the manipulation and economization of language. For example, adjacency greeting pair parts, routinized through daily social practice, were manipulated for use as requests. The analysis of recorded and transcribed data, using methods associated with corpus linguistics, and following parameters set by McCarthy (1999), presents a picture of a notably reduced language system - the lingua franca used by the residents. The last two chapters focus in detail on the pragmatic use of the language at the disposal of the residents. It is argued that at the micro level, the residents exploited to the maximum, discoursally and semantically, yeah and okay and other minimal responses in combination with pauses, silences, intonational contour, pitch and intensity, to negotiate their way through difficult interaction with the staff of the centre, and that at the macro-level such strategy camouflaged the lexicogrammatical limitations, minimized the impression of disfluency, and allowed the residents to maintain subliminal control over the trajectory of talk. It is argued that the residents, in interaction with one another, maintained the orderliness of turn-taking, principally due to mutual collaborative support and recourse to the natural to and fro of communication.
Queer ecofeminism: from binary feminist environmental endeavours to postgender pursuits
(2023-11-03) Ourkiya, Asmae
Preface Acknowledgments Introduction Chapter 1: Ecofeminism: Inception; Development and Challenges Chapter 2: On De-Essentialising Ecofeminism Chapter 3: Gendered Climate Politics: Between the Far Right and Social Justice Chapter 4: Queering Ecofeminism: Challenging Heteronormative Far-Right Politics Chapter 5: Post-Gender Semiotics Conclusion References
‘Trying to draw a map of a child’s mind’: a study of the influence of childhood experience on the literary works of J. M. Barrie through a Freudian lens
(2023-10-27) O’Brien, Marie
This project aims to investigate what lies beneath the surface of J. M. Barrie’s work, from his representation of fictional characters to his subtle references to perplexing themes in his diary entries and factual recollections of his childhood. Through the use of Sigmund Freud’s theories, the thesis will trace strong, but often occluded, connections between Barrie’s repressed early childhood experiences, and some of the characters that he created in some of his early books Better Dead, Sentimental Tommy, Tommy and Grizel, The Little White Bird, and his memoir Margaret Ogilvy, and of course, in Peter Pan, where the timeless child is juxtaposed with children who are growing into adulthood. In doing so, this reading will allow for an analysis of the repressed elements of Barrie’s life, allowing them to be seen more clearly, which will enhance the significance behind his story-telling. There are several of Freud’s theories that occur in Barrie’s texts, from the use of flight to the inherent instincts that drive us towards life or death. One of the most compelling, perhaps, is the use of dreams in Peter Pan. Freudian studies suggest that the ego’s defences are lowered whilst we dream, therefore, our repressed feelings float to the surface, allowing an insight into how the unconscious mind works. Peter Pan appears to Wendy through her dreams, suggesting that Peter is an illusion of repressed desired feelings. Although dream analysis can be examined in the fantastical tale of Peter Pan, looking at the fictional novel in contrast to some of Barrie’s texts that are rooted in reality, allows a clear distinction to be drawn between dreams that occur in childhood and those that the adult characters experience. This interlinks with the core conclusion of this thesis, that Peter is the result of Barrie’s repressed desire to relive his childhood and return to a state of heightened consciousness. As Kavey and Friedman explain, Peter is a representation of ‘the most appealing aspects of childhood,’ with the most envious trait being his lack of memory (Kavey & Friedman, 2009, p. 10). Furthermore, whilst the occurrence of dreams provides a foundation for this thesis, the stages of psychosexual development also provide essential information by giving an insight to the reason why Barrie described Peter Pan as the villain of the text. By remaining a child forever, Peter Pan cannot complete the five stages of sexual development; oral, anal, phallic, latency and genital (Freud & Strachey, 2000, p. 7), which is believed to be detrimental to the human psyche. Peter will forever live as a child, which means he will never reach maturity. Thus, this project will examine this idea of immaturity, and Barrie’s depiction of the impacts caused by the failure to surpass childhood naivety, ultimately concluding that typical villainous traits such as immaturity, selfishness and impulsivity may impact others, but the full extent of consequences fail to affect someone whose conscience will never develop.
A literary and cultural analysis of the mistreatment of women portrayed in the works of female Irish writers and critical social events in Ireland 1984-2022
(2023-10-25) Murphy, Madeleine
This thesis examines the treatment of women in Irish society through a cultural and literary approach. The analysis includes a variety of literature dating from 1936 to 2015. The authors discussed are all female: Teresa Deevy, Rosaleen McDonagh, Kimberley Campanello, and Louise O’Neill. They are examined in chronological order while also exploring the cultural context of the time period in which the works were published. It also looks at the historical narratives of Ann Lovett, Joanne Hayes and the Belfast and Cork rape trials. Each cultural discussion focuses on women’s lives and the challenges present for them at this time. Feminist theory is a lens through which the literature is explored, including theorists such as Luce Irigaray, Simone de Beauvoir, Julia Kristeva and Hélène Cixous. These feminist theorists offer an ongoing explorative critique of traditional, and patriarchal, values present in Irish culture, regarding women in particular. The impact of the Catholic Church on Irish society at this time is woven into the discourse throughout the thesis, along with themes such as reproduction, racism, specifically of those in the Traveller community, and ableism that are present in some of the works, therefore depicting Irish society. The combination of theory, fictional representations and historical events within the context of a patriarchal Irish society allows for a rich examination of the mistreatment of women in Ireland. The thesis highlights the development of women’s position in Irish society over eighty years and while there has been slow progress, the examination shows that total equality has not yet been reached.
Constitutionally codified, the myth of the maternal in the national imaginary
(2023-10-25) Murphy, Lorna
This thesis will address Article 41.2 of the Constitution to examine how it affected Irish women for the succeeding eighty years. It will draw from De Valera’s ideology of nation building in 1937, which situated women in the private realm of the home. It will examine the special position afforded to the Catholic Church that wedded the function of women to a biological one of purity and sacrifice. Analysing a longitudinal selection of short stories from four different authors, their identifiable set of characteristics will convey a complete treatment of a subject. These subjects seek to question the symbolisation of women by an autocracy that enshrined their domestic position constitutionally. The analyses will employ the lens of literary critic and philosopher Julia Kristeva to appraise the role of motherhood and support a better understanding of their lived experience. Irish women and girls historically carried a disproportionate share of caring responsibilities, that left them discriminated against at home and in the workplace. Her philosophy of abjection responds to the way the selected authors narrated their female marginalisation, objectification and latterly racism, which features in the more contemporary texts. This aligns with her theory that posits females as subjects-in-process who can actively advance their social progress. The final topic concerns the recent Citizen’s Assembly on gender equality exampling such progress. Chaired by Dr Catherine Day, the findings concluded the need for a referendum to remove or reword Article 41.2 from the Constitution and replace it with non-gender specific language, that simultaneously includes protection of non-marital families.
Revolution, rebellion and vampires: colonial hybridity in Irish gothic literature and historical documents
(2023-10-24) Gallagher, Stephen
Colonial hybridity remains one of the most widely deployed and disputed literary theories within Postcolonial Studies. This thesis will provide an overview of colonial hybridity in Irish historical documents as well as Irish folklore and Irish gothic literature. I will use Homi Bhabha’s The Location of Culture (1994) as the primary theoretical resource to highlight the examples of colonial hybridity throughout Irish history, folklore and literature. I will also discuss the debatable idea that Ireland is postcolonial. In this thesis I examine the 1641 legal depositions relating to the Irish rebellion of 1641, tracing colonial hybridity through the murder of Bridget Cleary and the involvement of Irish fairy folklore in her death. I discuss the vampires of Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu and Bram Stoker towards the end of the 19th century in relation to the principal theorists of hybridity; Homi Bhabha, Néstor García Canclini, Gayatri Spivak, Robert J.C. Young and Paul Gilroy. I also discuss the more contemporary research of Angela Bourke, Seamus Deane, David Lloyd and Luke Gibbons. The final chapter discusses postcolonial trauma in Patrick McCabe’s Winterwood (2006), and examines how even the term postcolonial can be contentious as Anne McClintock argues that while the Republic of Ireland might be considered postcolonial, the people of Northern Ireland might feel differently. While acknowledging the valid criticisms of colonial hybridity, I argue that Robert J.C. Young’s view that hybridity can be used as a source of assimilation is relevant in a world that is increasingly having more debates on hybridity in relation to such issues as nationality, colonialism, gender and sexuality.
Good grief: changing attitudes to childhood grief in children's literature
(2023-10-24) Clifford, Rachel
In the modern context, it is understood that childhood grief is a normal response to loss and that bereaved children require support and guidance to navigate their grief. However, less than a century ago it was believed children did not grieve at all. When childhood grief was eventually acknowledged, it was thought best for children to avoid discussing their grief, that they were resilient, and would eventually learn to adapt to their loss. Research into childhood grief was limited, however two studies into childhood grief by Dr Maria Nagy in the 1940’s and Dr Elisabeth Kubler Ross in the 1970’s resulted in the development of age specific stages of grief. However, it took until the 1990’s before any major research was conducted into childhood grief. The Harvard Child Bereavement Study questioned how children mourned when a parent died and if grief in children differed from that of adults. More recent research has discovered longterm implications if a child’s grief is not adequately acknowledged and resolved. However, the portrayal of childhood grief in children’s literature or whether this portrayal is reflective of the changing attitudes to childhood grief has not been studied. Therefore, through the lens of literary trauma theory, this thesis examines this under researched area. It utilises critical perspectives from literary trauma theorists Cathy Caruth, a traditional literary trauma theorist, and Michelle Satterlee, a pluralistic literary trauma theorist, and offers a critique of both theoretical approaches and discusses their strengths and weaknesses. This thesis 5 investigates how changing attitudes to childhood grief are represented in children’s literature. It looks at a range of texts from the early twentieth century to the early twenty-first century and considers the influence of beliefs and attitudes surrounding death within the temporal and cultural contexts in which they were set. The primary texts analysed are: The Secret Garden (1911) by Frances Hodgson Burnett, The Yearling (1938) by Marjorie Kinnan Rawling, Goodnight Mr Tom (1981) by Michelle Magorian, A Taste of Blackberries (1973) by Doris Buchanan Smith, Bridge to Terabithia (1977) by Katherine Paterson and A Monster Calls (2011) by Patrick Ness. These texts span a century from 1911 to 2011, and were selected to represent a range of childhood losses, including the loss of parents, friends, siblings, and pets. It provides an in-depth analysis of childhood grief in children’s literature and analyses how society shapes the treatment of childhood grief. Additionally, it will explore bibliotherapy as a therapeutic approach to help children understand and cope with grief and loss and how literature can facilitate a deeper understanding of their traumatic experiences and the resulting emotional and psychological challenges it can evoke.
Sarah Atkinson (1823-1893) in The Irish Quarterly Review, Duffy’s hibernian magazine, Duffy’s hibernian sixpenny magazine, the month and the Irish monthly: a study of nineteenth-century Irish women writers and their literary and publishing networks (1857-1893)
(2023-10-23) Brassil, Geraldine
Anchored in the nineteenth-century periodical archive, this recovery project takes Sarah Atkinson (1823-1893) as a centripetal force. An influential Irish Catholic middle-class writer and philanthropist, Atkinson lists work across a range of genres in the Irish Quarterly Review, Duffy’s Hibernian Magazine, Duffy’s Hibernian Sixpenny Magazine, The Month and the Irish Monthly. Her recovered periodical contributions guide the trajectory of this thesis. Also traced via a series of periodical case studies are the various contemporaries whose work appears alongside Atkinson’s. The list includes Julia Kavanagh (1824-1877), Mary Banim (c.1847-1939), Rosa Mulholland (1841-1921), Ellen Fitzsimon (1805-1883) and Katharine Tynan (1859-1931). From the vantage point of a safe but also enabling Catholic periodical space, Irish women writers’ exploitation of flexible and fluid genres is demonstrated to have reflected modern female attitudes that subverted gendered constructs of cultural authority in a male-dominated profession. Reclaiming these Irish women writers from contemporary periodicals. I explore how they pushed outwards to expand limiting expectations about the role and position of women . Literary critic and cultural historian John Wilson Foster argues that Atkinson was ‘one of the most brilliant Irish women of her generation’ (2008, p.125), yet her diverse non-fiction writing remains invisible on the Irish literary landscape. My thesis addresses such lacunae. Through recovery work, I demonstrate that Atkinson’s encouragement of other women writers, her social activism, and her until now unexamined connections with early English feminist Bessie Rayner Parkes (1829-1925) created networks out of which come broader understandings of the period and new insights into Dublin's literary and publishing networks - the core project of this thesis.
The Irish question: an investigation into Irish language self-efficacy beliefs in adults
(2023-10-23) Barry, Shane
The vast majority of adults that have received their education in Ireland undertake compulsory Irish for around 13 years. However, over 60% of adults claim to have no Irish speaking ability (CSO, 2018). This study seeks to assess the relationship between Irish language self-efficacy beliefs and performance on an Irish language proficiency test. Self-efficacy represents a task-specific, self-assessment of skills in a specific domain. Utilising a quasi-experimental, quantitative research design, an Irish language proficiency test and suite of self-efficacy scales were created and administered via an online survey platform. 1,501 participants completed the full manipulation study. Based on results at phase 1, participants were auto assigned to groups and an intervention was administered. Performers with low results were provided false, inflated results and efficacy-raising feedback. High performers were provided false, deflated results and efficacy-lowering feedback. A control group was presented with actual results. Phase 2 testing revealed that sources of self-efficacy could be manipulated to significantly affect Irish language performance with low performers improving average performance by almost 30%. Self-efficacy ratings, were significantly reduced in the high performing group upon receiving the negative intervention. Self-efficacy revealed itself as a more robust predictor of performance than a single Irish skills-based question such as that employed in the Census of Population.
‘Jaysus, keep talking like that and you’ll fit right in’- an investigation of oral Irish English in contemporary Irish fiction
(2023-10-02) Terrazas-Calero, Ana Maria
This project is an interdisciplinary and comparative investigation of the reproduction of linguistic features of Irish English (IrE) present in contemporary IrE fiction. To do this, a corpus of over 1 million words comprising 16 works of fiction published in the Republic of Ireland by 8 authors was compiled: the Corpus of Contemporary Fictionalized Irish English (CoFIrE). The goal of this thesis, therefore, is to determine 1) which are the most frequently reproduced features of IrE orality in contemporary IrE fiction, 1a) how realistic is their fictional portrayal when contrasted against real spoken uses, 2) what does the use of the most frequently reproduced features in the corpus encode with regard to speaker identity, and 3) in what manner may modern Irishness be encoded through the reproduction of pragmatic items in fiction. Utilizing a variety of interdisciplinary methodologies, including Corpus Stylistics, Corpus Linguistics, Sociolinguistic, and Pragmatic techniques, the thesis identifies signature linguistic features that are thought to be representative of IrE in the corpus via quantitative and qualitative, comparative corpus analysis. To evaluate the level of realism inherent in the fictional rendition, the findings are contrasted against the Limerick Corpus of Irish English and the BNC2014. A second corpus comprising books by one of the CoFIrE authors, i.e. Paul Howard, was also compiled. Thus, the Ross O’Carroll-Kelly Corpus (CoROCK) was created given this series’ reputation for being a chronicler of modern Ireland and because of the high frequency of IrE orality reproduction these books were found to contribute to CoFIrE. Two case studies on non-standard, non-traditionally IrE high frequency intensifiers are conducted on CoROCK to better answer the research questions regarding the potential indexation of modern Irishness through speech reproduction in fiction. Finally, by evaluating the type of speaker identity these features may index when used in contemporary fiction, this thesis determines the type of modern Irishness that appears to be encoded through fictional speech representations.
A journey through learner language: tracking development using POS tag sequences in large-scale learner data
(2023-09-29) Mark, Geraldine
This PhD study comes at a cross-roads of SLA studies and corpus linguistics methodology, using a bottom-up data-first approach to throw light on second language development. Taking POS tag n-gram sequences as a starting point, searching the data from the outermost syntactic layer available in corpus tools, it is an investigation of grammatical development in learner language across the six proficiency levels in the 52-million-word CEFR-benchmarked quasi-longitudinal Cambridge Learner Corpus. It takes a mixed methods approach, first examining the frequency and distribution of POS tag sequences by level, identifying convergence and divergence, and secondly looking qualitatively at form-meaning mappings of sequences at differing levels. It seeks to observe if there are sequences which characterise levels and which might index the transition between levels. It investigates sequence use at a lexical and functional level and explores whether this can contribute to our understanding of how a generic repertoire of learner language develops. It aims to contribute to the theoretical debate by looking critically at how current theories of language development and description might account for learner language development. It responds to the call to look at largescale learner data, and benefits from privileged access to such longitudinal data, acknowledging the limitations of any corpus data and the need to triangulate across different datasets. It seeks to illustrate how L2 language use converges and diverges across proficiency levels and to investigate convergence and divergence between L1 and L2 usage.
A corpus-based comparative pragmatic analysis of Irish English and Canadian English
(2022-04-06) Almuways, Yasir Sulaiman
This PhD thesis is a comparative study of the spoken grammar of Irish and Canadian Englishes within the framework of Variational Pragmatics at the formal level, used to study the pragmatic variation (the intra-varietal differences) in terms of forms and pragmatic functions. It is a study of spoken grammar as a whole (in a comparative and representative way between and across two varieties of English). Corpus linguistics is used as a methodological tool in order to conduct this research, exploring the nature of spoken grammar usage in both varieties comparatively in relation to their pragmatic functions and forms. The study illustrates an iterative approach in which top-down and bottom-up processes are used to establish pragmatic markers and their pragmatic functions in spoken grammar in the two varieties. Top-down analysis employs a framework for spoken grammar based on existing literature while the bottom-up process is based on micro-analysis of the data. The corpora used in the study are the spoken components of two International Corpus of English (ICE) corpora, namely ICE-Ireland and ICE-Canada comprising 600,000 words each (approximately). Methodologically, this study is not purely corpus-based nor corpus-driven but employs both methods. This iterative approach aligns with the notions of corpus-based versus corpus-driven linguistics and perspectives. Corpus tools are used to generate wordlists of the top 100 most frequent word and cluster lists. These are then analysed through qualitative analysis in order to identify whether or not they are a part of the spoken grammar. This process results in a candidate list that can then be functionally categorised and compared across varieties in terms of forms and functions. Specifically, the study offers insights on pragmatic markers: discourse markers, response tokens, questions, hedges and stance markers in Irish and Canadian English. The results offer a baseline description of the commonalities and differences in terms of spoken grammar and pragmatics across the two varieties of English which may have application to the study of other varieties of English. Also, the prominent forms of spoken grammar across these two varieties can be further explored from a macro-social perspective (e.g. age, gender, or social class) and a micro-social perspective (e.g. social distance or social dominance) and how these interplay with pragmatic choices.
Céad mίle fáilte: a corpus-based study of the development of a community of practice within the Irish hotel management training sector
(2022-04-05) Healy, Margaret
This thesis examines the discourse of a unique third-level academic institution in order to identify the variety of linguistic features, which align it, first of all, to the higher education sector in general, but more specifically to a specific professional world where students are being educated for their future careers. Specifically, a college of hotel management education in the south of Ireland is the locus of research. Students complete a four-year Business Degree in International Hotel Management during which time they gain academic and theoretical knowledge along with practical industry experience during placement internships in the industry. Data collection using oral recordings spanned a twelve-month period and two academic years. This allowed for a comprehensive matrix of recording events encapsulating the full gamut of college academic life across the three years of student presence on campus. Recordings included a variety of hotel-specific and business lectures, practical working sessions, language classes and some miscellaneous events, thus creating a one-million word spoken corpus devoted to this sector. The primary research question concerns the identification and quantification of the discourse specific to this academic and professionally-oriented environment, using corpus linguistics methodologies. Parallel to and supported by this specialised linguistic repertoire lies the development of the emergent identity among the students themselves and their place and future careers within the international hotel management sector. This aspect will be analysed within Wenger’s (1998) framework of community of practice and Lave and Wenger’s (1991) initial theory of legitimate peripheral participation. In addition, an ethnographic lens will be employed to shed light on the day-to-day operations of this college and how the totality of this unique community, expressed through its discourse, but not only so, establishes and fosters an environment where the students develop their future professional identities supported by the academic professionals who are experienced industry practitioners in the field of international hotel management.

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