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This thesis is about how words and (word-)forms from German and English interact with each other and with same-language elements. That is, it is a comparison of the syntax of bilingual speakers' monolingual and intra-sententially code-switched utterances. It is based on the assumption that each word in a syntactic dependency relation must satisfy the constraints imposed on it by its own language. This hypothesis is presumed to hold for monolingual and mixed dependencies alike.

Located at the intersection of the fields of study abroad (SA), sociolinguistics, EFL, and mobility, this doctoral project provides a sociolinguistic investigation of the mobility trajectories of study abroad among nine Palestinian postgraduate students in English HE. The purpose of this research is to understand the consequences of mobility on sojourners' perceptions of their Englishes, identity (trans)formation with specific reference to social class construction, and social practices and networks in the new context. This study springs from the need to qualitatively document the under-researched experiences of Palestinian sojourners in the UK and privilege their voices. Hence, this research adds more diversity to the SA literature which has been criticised for over-representing certain departure zones such as the USA and Europe. Moreover, the research addresses many calls for widening the scope of investigating sojourners' lives abroad. It attends to Coleman's (2013) call for embracing a holistic perspective towards sojourners' experiences, viewing them as 'whole people with whole lives'. Also, the study responds to calls which stress the importance of sojourners' histories and contextual antecedents (Surtees, 2016) by touching on participants' language history, motivations, statuses, and im/mobilities back home to provide a thorough understanding of their journeys to and in the UK. To this end, data were longitudinally collected over a period of nine months through two initial focus groups and three waves of individual interviews, resulting in a total of 27 interviews. Thematic Analysis (TA) was devised to interpret the nine cases under study. TA generated commonalities as well as singularities/differences in the sample. Findings revealed that participants' perceptions of their Englishes were affected by crossing borders and changing contexts. While sojourners perceived their linguistic repertoires as competent by virtue of their successful language histories back home, their views on their Englishes were subject to ongoing negotiation and reconceptualisation upon mobility. Participants started to view their Englishes as 'less distinguished' and 'not enough' in the UK. Sojourners' perceived linguistic limitation (relatively) disturbed their perceptions of themselves as EFL/ESL speakers, thus leading to forming new reflexive linguistic identities. Other reflexive identities, such as 'foreigner identity' were triggered as a result of participants' mobility and its encounters. Class-mediated constructions were complex and fluctuating, but they generally featured more moments of moving down (i.e., declassing) than elevating up. Participants' socialisation practises centred around their co-national circles which provided the necessary support, security, and familiarity, although other outer social spheres were mentioned by some participants towards the middle of the sojourn. Sojourners' accounts also featured supportive and obstructive factors underpinning their decisions to establish social connections, such as sharing cultural habits and intense academic work, respectively. Both sets of factors contributed to a sort of 'ghettoisation' which was perceived in this study as a necessary strategy for coping and handling complexity, strangeness, and difference in the UK.

Globally, the spread of English continues to have a significant impact on educational policies and practices in countries around the world. Implementation challenges have been acknowledged widely and Colombia is no exception to this. The Colombian government has endorsed policies and pedagogical reforms to improve the teaching-learning quality of the English Language and thus advance the language competence of students. This thesis aims to provide a deeper and useful insight into how disadvantaged youths experience the objectives of Colombia's National Bilingual Program (NBP) in relation to the symbolic and cultural capitals associated with learning English. This is an under-researched area, where available literature has mainly focused on teachers, teaching methodologies and the national bilingual program itself, with limited consideration for the social context and the learning process experienced by the students. The project asks disadvantaged youths about their perspective on and perception of the role of English as a Foreign Language (EFL)in their social mobility, social integration, and/or marginalisation as local and global citizens, and how EFL influences their life trajectory, identity (trans)formation, and present and future desires. In doing so, the findings enable policymakers and academics to better understand the experiences and realities of those directly affected by the implementation of these policies. This study gives youths a voice to express their attitudes, experiences and perceptions concerning the role of the English language in their lives. Bylooking at individual experiences rather than figures at Macro level, the study provides a new perspective of Colombia's National Bilingual Program directly from those at the receiving end of it. Following a qualitative methodology consisting of focus groups, interviews and observations, I show that EFL learning experiences at school, family support and social networks can influence why most participants do not reach the objectives of Colombia's NBP. Similarly, the presence of structural and symbolic violence in their social context influencestheir perception of English as well as plays a significant role in their lives, identity formation and future aspirations.

This study investigated the syntactic errors of the English Noun Phrase (NP) committed by Saudi female students at Princess Noura University. The purpose of the study was to investigate Arabic interference in learning English as a Foreign Language writing. An overview of related literature confirmed the existence of many prior studies finding that Arabic structures interfered in one-way or another with students’ English writing. An error analysis (EA) was conducted on 178 student essays based on James’ (2013) model, supplemented by a comparative analysis between Arabic and English to find the sources of interlanguage errors. The EA identified, described, classified, and explained errors through a process that included a comparison between interlanguage and intralanguage errors and a detailed classification of errors into the main NP categories and subcategories. A questionnaire was administered to English teachers to find if there was an influence of those errors on text comprehensibility. The results revealed that: correct NPs were more frequent than incorrect NPs; interlanguage errors were more frequent than intralanguage ones; that interlanguage errors were most frequent in Articles, Pronouns, Nouns, and Prepositions; and the sources of NP errors were related to the structural differences between Arabic and English. Finally, the results revealed that most frequent errors did not have a noticeable influence on text comprehensibility.

This thesis investigates and documents the mixing of English elements at various levels in the conversation of the Nepalese people irrespective of their age groups, gender, education level, professions and geographical locations. The objectives of this research are to find out- the extent of mixing English in the conversation of the Nepalese people; groups of people by social variables mixing English more; the reasons for mixing English; the role of media and education in mixing English and finally the impact of Nepali-English language contact on Nepali language. I employed both primary and secondary data for this research; questionnaire survey with individual and group interview followed by the recording of the natural conversation of the people, the first hand empirical evidence of mixing English in the natural settings. Furthermore, I observed and analysed relevant Nepali-English mixed data from various domains such as print media, broadcasting media and education institutions. The structural analysis of the Nepali-English code-switching data from both primary and secondary sources evinces that the English elements from lexical level, clausal and phrasal level to sentence level are mixed in the conversation of the Nepalese people. The Nepali-English code-switching data are dominated more at lexical levels specifically by English nouns indicatiing contact-induced potential lexical loss of Nepali retaining the morpho-syntactic rules of the Nepali language. Intra-sentential and inter-sentential code-switching are evident in the code-switching data of Nepali-English language pairs. The English embedded language island is placed in a mixed sentence according to the Nepali grammar without violating the English grammar structure. The main reason for mixing the English elements is to facilitate conversation. This research identified mixing English elements in the conversation of the Nepalese people is influenced by professions, education level and geographical locations. However, no significant difference was identified among the age group and gender group in mixing English in their conversations. Nepali-English mixed language has emerged as a dialect in the Nepali speech community through the recurrent use of the English elements in the Nepali conversation. This research adds Nepali-English code-switching study carried out based on the existing code-switching theories studied outside Nepal to the literature of the world code-switching study. The documentation of Nepali-English CS in this thesis bears significance at the time when teaching English has become global and has no more limited to its first language speakers. This study further provides platform to discuss the idea of trans-languaging in English language pedagogy. Similarly, this study provides empirical evidences to show that English is gradually developing as a second language in Nepal.

The academic word list (AWL) is essential for EFL learners wishing to study at university level in English speaking universities. This list, together with the 2000 most common English words, is vital for learners’ comprehension of academic texts (Nation, 2006). However, the current practice of many presessional courses in the UK and English foundation courses elsewhere, e.g. Saudi Arabia, does not include the explicit teaching of the AWL within the curriculum, even though research has shown that direct teaching leads to higher pickup rates of the targeted words than implicit teaching (as in Sonbul and Schmitt, 2009). Academic vocabulary is mostly taught within other language input such as academic reading and listening, or made available for students for independent study. For this thesis, three studies have been conducted; the first investigated how much of the AWL is learned on typical presessional courses in an English speaking country - the UK. Two universities hosted this study, accommodating 103 participants in total. The second study investigated how much of the AWL is learned among students receiving two different methods of vocabulary teaching. This study took place at the Preparatory Year (PY) at KSU Riyadh, Saudi Arabia (the largest EFL project of its kind). Unlike most previous work, this study has used multiple measures to assess three levels of vocabulary knowledge: meaning recognition, written form recall aided by initial letters, and vocabulary richness in free-writing tasks. In the third study, learners and tutors were surveyed to state their beliefs, practices and experience in order to record their views concerning many issues regarding vocabulary teaching to advanced learners. The results show that EFL learners at this advanced stage of language study have a poor ability to produce academic words, regardless of their high performance in recognizing the AWL. III Their knowledge of the academic words was found to correlate with general vocabulary size and their ability to write academic words in free writing tasks. Furthermore, learners exposed to direct enhancement of the academic words during the Preparatory Year PY outperformed learners exposed to regular academic teaching in the course. Finally, regarding beliefs and feedback concerning vocabulary teaching, it was found that advanced learners appreciate direct lexical instruction more than implicit approaches, contradicting many common perceptions that advanced learners prefer implicit vocabulary learning. The results show further interesting variations in vocabulary gained and feedback regarding vocabulary teaching across the different groups identified. The implications of these findings for teaching and learning as well as assessment in the academic context are presented and discussed.