Дисертації з теми "English and Welsh banking"

This thesis is a study of the way in which Wales and Welshness have been depicted in Welsh general histories published in the period between 1970 and 1997. National identity has been and remains a topical and controversial issue in Wales, due to the complex and multiple nature of the identities that could be classified as 'national' identities. Correspondingly, the issue of identity, particularly national and regional identities, has been the subject of considerable study within Wales. These studies have provided considerable insight into the nature of Welsh identity but there remain significant gaps in the overall research picture. This study focuses on one: the way in which Welsh historiography has portrayed Wales and Welshness. The very nature of Welsh history means that such a study must also involve consideration of the impact of England and the relationship between Wales and England on the historiographical depictions of Wales and Welshness. England, as the dominant country in Britain and Wales' neighbour, has played a major role in shaping both the Welsh historical experience and Welsh identity, facts to which Welsh historians must respond, particularly when writing general histories of their country. This thesis, then, also examines the depiction of the Welsh-English relationship within Welsh national historiography and the way this, in turn, impacted on the way in which the historians portrayed Wales and Welshness. These concepts are very significant for both Welsh historiography and the wider study of Welsh identity. Historical studies, in providing the information for the construction of historically based national identities, are heavily involved in the larger issue of Welsh identity. This study aims to contribute to the research on Welsh identity through the analysis of this specific area of Welsh historiography. In doing so, this thesis offers a new way of approaching the complicated and very real issues of understanding Wales, Welshness and the relationship between Wales and England.

This thesis is a study of the way in which Wales and Welshness have been depicted in Welsh general histories published in the period between 1970 and 1997. National identity has been and remains a topical and controversial issue in Wales, due to the complex and multiple nature of the identities that could be classified as 'national' identities. Correspondingly, the issue of identity, particularly national and regional identities, has been the subject of considerable study within Wales. These studies have provided considerable insight into the nature of Welsh identity but there remain significant gaps in the overall research picture. This study focuses on one: the way in which Welsh historiography has portrayed Wales and Welshness. The very nature of Welsh history means that such a study must also involve consideration of the impact of England and the relationship between Wales and England on the historiographical depictions of Wales and Welshness. England, as the dominant country in Britain and Wales' neighbour, has played a major role in shaping both the Welsh historical experience and Welsh identity, facts to which Welsh historians must respond, particularly when writing general histories of their country. This thesis, then, also examines the depiction of the Welsh-English relationship within Welsh national historiography and the way this, in turn, impacted on the way in which the historians portrayed Wales and Welshness. These concepts are very significant for both Welsh historiography and the wider study of Welsh identity. Historical studies, in providing the information for the construction of historically based national identities, are heavily involved in the larger issue of Welsh identity. This study aims to contribute to the research on Welsh identity through the analysis of this specific area of Welsh historiography. In doing so, this thesis offers a new way of approaching the complicated and very real issues of understanding Wales, Welshness and the relationship between Wales and England.

There is a paucity of efficiency studies on the higher education sector in Britain. Only a small subset of those utilise stochastic frontier analysis (Izadi et al., 2002; Stevens, 2005). This paper bolsters the existing UK higher education stochastic frontier analysis literature through application of the conditional heteroscedasticity approaches to modelling environmental variables suggested by Coelli et al. (1999). Our database consists of 142 higher education institutions within England and Wales from 2004 to 2009. Application of the net and gross efficiency concepts allows the paper to distinguish between factors which affect the level of frontier cost faced by an institution, from those which only impact on efficiency. The analysis shows that institutions with higher proportions of female students, non-EU students, and STEM students suffer from lower efficiency. Conversely higher levels of female staff, membership to the Russell Group, and offering a Law programme are associated with greater efficiency of institution. Additionally, we provide evidence against the efficiency impact of geographical location and changing fee regime before reporting overall efficiency scores. The disparity in efficiency between all institutions will enable Institutional managers to identify key examples of best practice within the Sector, allow managers to separate increased levels of cost from increased inefficiency, and will suggest potential future areas of regulation and legislation to policy makers. Furthermore, this paper contributes a newly derived measure for research output. This extends measures of research output currently used and improves the precision of the estimated frontier enabling future benchmarking analysis to be more robust. The efficiency measures generated suggest that there may be benefits to mergers within the higher education sector. Following the Bogetoft and Wang (2005) model we evaluate the potential gains in efficiency to be realised through merging various institutions. We find that in several instances there are indeed benefits to be achieved through merger, particularly through joining institutions with specific, narrow curricula to those with broader curricula. Additionally there is also benefit to scale efficiency through merging institutions which occupy similar geography such as Birmingham which hosts five institutions. This thesis finally considers the competitive nature of the higher education sector and how intense that competition is. Through a novel application of the Boone (2008) model we evaluate the change in efficiency over the period of the sample find that there was an increase in competition across the full sample immediately following the fee increase in 2006-2007, though interesting the effects of competition are different between Russell Group and non-Russell Group subsamples. The effects of merger and competition within the higher education sector could inform policy decisions with further fee increases looking ever more certain. Encouraging mergers amongst smaller, focused institutions may provide additional resilience within the system, however the effect on competitiveness within the system must also be considered to ensure ever increasing standards.

Welsh Writing in English: Case Studies in Cultural Interaction This thesis explores and analyses instances of cultural interaction in the English-language literature of Wales. It explores the encounters that Anglophone Welsh writers have had with non-European territories and cultures, such as the complex textual record of Alun Lewis's experience of 1940s India, Welsh writers' experiences of Australia since the 1960s and Robert Minhinnick's writing about Brazil in the 1990s. It also explores the images and impressions of Llanybri inscribed in the poetry of the Argentine-born modernist poet Lynette Roberts. Using a broad range of theories from the fields of postcolonial studies, travel writing studies and interpretive anthropology, it explores issues such as the construction of cultural difference, the identity politics of cultural assimilation, and the reproduction and subversion of colonial tropes and stereotypes. By examining the diverse ways in which the Welsh have written about their experience of a range of cultures and environments throughout the twentieth century the thesis attempts to uncover hitherto undiscovered territory within the study of Welsh Writing in English.

If there was a castle community, then the Grays of Heton were amongst its most enthusiastic members. Three generations of the family, including the chronicler, served as constable of Norham castle (Northumberland), while his descendants owned Heaton Coldstream castle and Wark on Tweed castle (both Northumberland), at one point actually exchanging the newly built Heaton for the older, exposed, frontier castle at Wark. The aim of this study is to examine those people who were directly involved with the ownership or management of castles in the 150 years from the coronation of Edward I to the death of Henry V. It will examine the level and nature of each individual's involvement with castles and how these factors changed over time. It will only touch on the more popular areas of castle studies - the architectural and the military - from the viewpoint of the individuals involved, examining the men who were building castles as opposed to detailed examinations of what was being built. The same will be true of the siege, considered here not in regard to length, or mechanics, but in relation to the impact on the besieged constable or castle owner and on the besiegers. The aim of this study is to add the human element to the stone, earth and timber of traditional castle studies.The period of this study - from the reign of Edward I to that of Henry V- has been carefully chosen. At the start of this period, the castle was an established part of the landscape. Great magnates were still constructing mighty fortresses, while Edward I was shortly to begin building his great castles in north Wales. By the end of this period, the castle has been seen as being in decline. New castles were being built by newly wealthy men attempting to establish themselves, while the last new royal castle, Queenborough castle (Kent), was sixty years in the past. This period also saw several episode of great turmoil, in particular during the reigns of Edward II and Richard II, and this study will attempt to examine how the castle featured in these crises. In addition, Glendower's revolt at the end of the period saw the great castles of north Wales put to the test for the first time. These moments of crisis and upheaval should help illuminate the changing status of the castle.This study will cover England and Wales in full. Large areas of Wales were under English rule for the entire period, while by the end of the reign of Edward I the entire country was conquered. Many of the greatest lords in England were based in Wales and the Marches while Edward's conquests became a major part of the crown'sown lands. In contrast Scotland managed to retain its independence against great English pressure. The French and Scottish castles held by the English during this period will not be examined in their own right, but service at those castles by constables or owners of English or Welsh castles will be dealt with when examining the career of these people. The results of this study will be compared with those of scholars in other areas of Europe where the personnel of castles has been examined in more detail, hopefully adding much to our understanding of the English and Welsh case.A main interest of this study is the relationship between the castle community - whether owners or constables - and political power. in many parts of Europe, this relationship would be taken for granted, with local political power being linked directly to ownership of the local castle. However, the absence of this concept in writings focusing on England and Wales may be explained by the absence of the actual phenomenon as opposed to unawareness of it. Only on the Welsh Marches may such a relationship be seen. In England, the role played on the continent by the castellanies would appear to have been performed by the county castle and the sheriff, a post that remained firmly under the king's control in all but a few counties. Instead, a more subtle link between the castle community and political power will have to be found. It will be searched for in the appointment of constables to royal castles, and in grants of ownership of castles, royal or forfeited. It may be found in the building activity that was so common in this period, or in the marriage alliances that created many of the great castle owning estates.

The systematic study of language varieties in fictional texts have primarily focused upon written material. Recently, linguists have also added audio-visual genres to the analytic framework of literary dialect studies. Studies have traditionally examined writers’ lexical, phonological, and grammatical output; contemporarily, research has begun examining metalinguistic commentaries and linguistic indexing of character stereotypes to this repertoire (Hodson, 2014).Except for minor analysis of early texts (German, 2009), there has been no large-scale investigation of any Welsh English dialect in fiction. This thesis addresses this gap, asking the fundamental question: throughout history, how has Welsh English been represented in fiction? The thesis surveys a large chronological scope covering material from the 12th century until the present day across four narrative-genres: early writings and theatrical writing, novels, films, and, new to literary dialect studies, videogames. In doing so, a historical discussion forms that covers Welsh English’s fictolinguistic output, cross-referencing its linguistic forms with recorded data, identifying forms hitherto unknown to dialectological surveys, and addressing metalinguistic and attitudinal stereotypes in fiction. Key findings include that phonology was an early representational linguistic domain in the literary dialect, whilst lexical and grammatical domains became common from 19th century literature onwards. The commonest phonological and lexical features were glottal fricative drops and tapped /r/; and the endearment terms ‘bach/fach’ and ‘mam’ respectively. Grammatically, ‘Focus Fronting’ and ‘Demonstrative There’ regularly occurred. Regarding linguistic evidence, several authors and filmmakers were prolific lay surveyors of the variety, adding to the historical dialectological record. Concerning dialectal attitudes, Elizabethan playwrights used linguistic stereotyping to create character stereotypes of Welsh people as ‘comical’. By the 19th century, fictive Welsh English representation was the dominion of native-users in literature, film, and videogames; however today, the Comic stereotype, and an emerging stereotype of Welsh English users being Fantastical, appears embedded within the dialect’s representation.

This study considers how far some of the paradigms of postcolonial theory may be usefully adopted and adapted in order to provide an illuminating reading of Welsh writing in English. The introduction considers Wales's colonial/postcolonial status, and the first chapter discusses the construction of Wales as a colonised nation as it appears in writing (in both Welsh and English) of the 1950s and 1960s, with special reference to policies of afforestation in the Welsh uplands, including a discussion of the rhetoric of the Forestry Commission. The second chapter discusses recuperative feminist projects in Wales, and focuses on the fin de siécle, highlighting women's imperial roles as missionaries, but mainly focusing on women's engagement with, and the interaction between, discourses of nationalism, feminism and imperialism. The position of the Welsh (as authors, readers and textual constructions) as 'outsiders inside' is explored in the third chapter, which highlights the interpenetrations of discourses of race, degeneration, gender and pathology as they occur in Welsh writing in English. The penultimate chapter considers how a postcolonial understanding of linguistic power-struggles may be useful to Wales and focuses on the literary device of code-switching. The final chapter discusses the value of theories of hybridity in illuminating Welsh cultural experiences of assimilation and alterity.

Previous research has identified linguistic differences within Welsh-English bilingual children from predominantly English homes and homes where both Welsh and English were spoken are found to lag behind L1 Welsh children from Welsh speaking households on measures of Grammatical Gender (Gathercole & Thomas, 2009); Plural Morphology (Thomas, Williams, Jones, Davies & Binks, 2014); and Welsh vocabulary (Rhys & Thomas, 2013). This thesis aimed to establish the factors that could influence whether 2L1 and L2 Welsh bilingual children eventually reach comparable attainment levels or ‘catch-up’ to that of their L1 Welsh peers in their command of Welsh. Three experiments assessed participants aged 12-13 and 16-17 from different language backgrounds on their knowledge of Grammatical Gender; Plural Morphology; Welsh vocabulary, and English vocabulary. The data obtained indicated that there was a ‘catch-up’ within the 12-13 participants on measures of vocabulary and Gender; however, L2 Welsh bilinguals still lagged behind on measures of Plural Morphology. The ‘catch-up’ was not seen within the older 16-17 participants. A fourth experiment investigated how the participants, use of Welsh, attitude towards Welsh, and their confidence using Welsh influenced their overall competence on these linguistic measures. Results revealed no correlation between attitude and participants success on each test. However, there was a correlation between the participants’ use of Welsh and their knowledge of Welsh, yet it did not contribute to higher scores. Confidence in using Welsh was revealed to be the sole predictive factor in participants’ success on each test.

This thesis examines the phonetic, phonological, and social aspects of pre-aspiration in English spoken in Aberystwyth, mid Wales. Pre-aspiration refers to a period of voiceless (primarily) glottal friction occurring in the sequences of sonorants and phonetically voiceless obstruents (e.g. in mat [mahts] or mass [mahs]). Chapter 1 summarises the objectives of this thesis and where the thesis is positioned with respect to our current knowledge of the phenomenon and the relevant theoretical issues. Chapter 2 introduces the data used to address these objectives. Pre-aspiration is usually considered as consisting of a voiced glottal component, or breathiness, and a voiceless glottal component, or voiceless pre-aspiration, and these are treated as a single unit in a number of analyses (Helgason 2003; Helgason & Ringen 2008; Karlsson & Svantesson 2011; Morris 2010; Ringen & van Dommelen 2013; Stevens & Hajek 2004b, 2004c; Stevens 2010, 2011). Chapter 3 shows that this is not adequate because distinguishing the two enables us to discover patterns that would remain obscured otherwise – such as breathiness being a possible precursor to pre-aspiration. This is demonstrated through the segmental and prosodic conditioning of pre-aspiration and breathiness. Chapter 4 shows that although pre-aspiration is not an obligatory feature of Aberystwyth English (in the sense that it would occur in 100% of time where it can), it nevertheless forms two clear categories sensitive to phonological rather than phonetic vowel height. However, phonological vowel height on its own cannot explain these two categories and interacts with a number of other conditioning factors. Whilst Chapter 3 investigates the relationship between pre-aspiration and breathiness, Chapter 5 looks into that of pre-aspiration and glottalisation and demonstrates that the two can occur in the same environment, which enlightens the debates related to the historical connections between pre-aspiration and glottalisation in particular (e.g. Kortland 1988). It furthermore reveals that although it is not known why they are co-occurring for some speakers and mutually exclusive or allophonic for others, their relationship is conditioned prosodically and not segmentally. Chapter 6 illustrates that pre-aspiration is an acoustic correlate of the fortis-lenis contrast in plosives in production at least equally well as breathiness, voicing, release duration, or the duration of the preceding vowel, and better than voiceless closure duration, glottalisation, or f0 before or after the plosive in question in the word-medial (cotter [khɒhtsə] ~ codder [khɒdə]) and the word-final positions (cot ~ cod). It is therefore at least as important as the other four correlates. Chapter 7 finds that pre-aspiration also exhibits social conditioning. Females pre-aspirate more frequently than males, which is often found in pre-aspiration studies, but this difference disappears as the age decreases. Furthermore, the frequency of breathiness, and the duration of pre-aspiration and breathiness are not conditioned by gender. However, all four variables are affected by age. Pre-aspiration thus seems to be undergoing an advancing sound change according to Labov’s Principle II (2001: 292) and breathiness seems to be its precursor. Chapter 8 summarises the results and outlines questions for further research.

Since the time of Freud, some of the most radical innovators within critical theory have repeatedly stressed the importance of the body and its representation to the constitution of subjectivity. This thesis explores some of the theoretical debates surrounding the body, and assesses the value of 'the body' as a critical concept, through an analysis of the body's representation in both Welsh writing in English and discourse about Wales more generally. Through combining psychoanalytic with more culturally orientated approaches to the body, I produce in this study an historically informed account of the body in Welsh writing in English, analysing its role in the construction and contestation of identity at a cultural as well as individual level. In the process, I interrogate the ideological concepts underpinning psychoanalytic discourse, positioning its postulates (and accordingly modifying them) within the context of more culturally and historically aware accounts of Welsh literary practice. Most importantly, however, this thesis offers a new and radical contribution to the rapidly expanding critical literature on Wales concerned with exploring the construction of identity in a Welsh cultural context. While the need for such work in multicultural, post-devolutionary Wales has been widely recognised, the role of the body in the formation and contestation of identity has yet to be examined with any degree of adequacy or theoretical rigour within a Welsh context. It is a primary intention of this study to begin to rectify this area of critical neglect and provide the groundwork for subsequent investigations.

This thesis is a study of language switching and concept development in Welsh-English bilingual children aged between 3 and 7 years. The main aim is to study these from an interdisciplinary perspective. A second aim is to increase knowledge of Welsh/English bilingualism. The literature review is wide-ranging, discussing both language switching, and bilingual language development. Studies of switching both within sentences and within conversations are considered, as are linguistic, sociological and psychological explanations for the phenomenon. Studies on cognitive differences between bilingual and monolingual children are also discussed. The empirical part of the thesis utilises data drawn from a study carried out at the University College of Wales, and funded by the Welsh Office. The data consists of language switches produced in recordings made of the language of three to six year old Welsh/English bilinguals. These switches are described and analysed in the light of previous literature on the topic, with particular reference to children who switch frequently and to the types of switches produced. Models previously used in the literature for the analysis of such data are discussed and an alternative approach - the levels-of-analysis model - is presented. The second empirical part of the thesis is the analysisof results on a range of concept tests carried out on children aged between five and seven years old. The results obtained by Welsh preferred language children (bilingual) and English preferred language children (monolingual) are compared. It was found that overall there were few differences between these two groups, supporting the original hypothesis that bilingualism does not have a marked effect on cognitive development. Small differences in the direction of a superior performance by English preferred language children are also discussed and possible explanations considered. It is emphasised in this thesis that bilingualism needs to be studied from an interdisciplinary perspective. The levels of analysis model presented here is offered as an approach for doing this.

This thesis traces the relation between Anglophone Welsh fiction and politics, in light of the campaign for, and introduction, of devolution. Focusing primarily on the period 1970 – 2011, the thesis analyses a range of novels, short stories and journal articles produced in this period. The Introduction begins with an analysis of the history of devolution in Wales and considers theories of nationalism proposed by theorists including Benedict Anderson and Raymond Williams, both of whom suggest that heightened awareness of a wider national community is integral to the development of a cohesive nationalist impulse. Chapter I commences with an analysis of the relation between literature and politics in the years prior to the 1979 referendum on Welsh devolution. Taking as its starting point Fredric Jameson’s theory of political allegory in literature, this chapter considers the way in which the presentation of politics in Anglophone Welsh fiction becomes gradually more overt by the close of the 1970s. Chapter II examines the way in which Anglophone Welsh fiction writers responded to the outcome of the 1979 referendum, alongside other political events of the 1980s such as the Falklands War and widespread industrial decline. Chapter III charts the development of the relation between fiction and politics in 1990s Wales, suggesting that the years preceding the 1997 referendum on devolution witnessed a more overt engagement between Anglophone Welsh fiction and politics than had been evident in the 1970s. The final chapter argues that in the wake of devolution fiction from Wales has responded by presenting an increasingly diverse and multi-faceted image of Wales, characterised by a more overt engagement with politics and nationalism. The Conclusion considers how the changes outlined in this thesis relate to wider cultural developments in Wales and suggests how this research may be expanded to incorporate broader areas of the arts in Wales.

The ‘acts of union’ administrative and judicial machinery, through which Wales was governed from the late-Tudor period onwards, gave a major role to native Welshmen. It is sometimes argued that this encouraged a predominantly self-seeking Welsh gentry class to consolidate, attracted to English priorities, to the continuing detriment of Welsh culture and language. Through an examination of the life and career of a single individual from this class, the lawyer-landowner Hugh Hughes (c. 1548-1609) of Plas Coch in Anglesey, it is argued on the contrary that the multi-tiered administrative system helped perpetuate Welsh distinctiveness, with highly educated bi-lingual lawyers like Hughes himself crucial to the effectiveness of the machinery of government. His English university and legal training is shown to have been compatible with continued embeddedness in Welsh-speaking Anglesey, and the thesis uses him as a prism for understanding the various north Welsh governance institutions, in most of which he was personally involved, and their inter-connected workings. It is probably more appropriate to picture key figures of Hugh Hughes’ kind as acting on behalf of an emergent shared ‘imagined community’ of ‘Britain’, than as compromised agents of English hegemony. Reflections are offered on possible implications of such a perspective for present-day attitudes towards devolution.

This thesis presents a study of the speech of Welsh-English bilinguals to determine the extent and manner of the structural influence of English on Welsh, specifically the phenomenon of convergence, which is described as the increase in frequency of use of a construction (e.g. word order) in one language due to the prevalence of that construction in another language with which its speakers are in contact. I take two approaches to measure convergence, using Welsh-English conversational data which were specially collected for a 40 hour corpus. First, I adapt the Matrix Language Frame model (Myers-Scotton 2002), usable to identify the language from which clause morphosyntax is sourced, to identify convergence. I propose the concept of a dichotomous Matrix Language, which is where there is conflicting evidence for which language provides clause structure. In testing the model on speech from six speakers, I find that, with few exceptions, Welsh is the source of the structure in the majority of clauses analysed. I Interpret this to show that word-order convergence in these data is limited insofar as using the Matrix Language Frame model indicates. Second, I analyse the speech of 28 bilinguals for evidence of the deletion of the initial auxiliary verb in periphrastic constructions involving an auxiliary form of bod 'be' and a 2nd person singular pronominal subject ti. Auxiliary deletion (AD) in such clauses results in a clause-initial subject, which I compare to English SVO word-order. I find that AD in such contexts is very common in these data, and is also found in clauses with a different subject. Analysis of age variation in the data indicates that AD in Welsh has become more common in recent years. I propose that an increase to subject-initial clauses in Welsh may be a change in progress, which I interpret to be in part due to convergence to English.

This thesis discusses discursive constructions of place, which are seen to largely replace essentialist constructions of place, in contemporary Welsh drama in English (1979-2003). Place is seen as a particularly important structural element both of constructing reality in Wales and of replicating that reality in the theatre. The relatively new critical shift towards an interest in place in Western cultural criticism contributes, it is argued, to a new 'structure of feeling' (Raymond Williams) in the writing of new Welsh plays in the English language. The first chapter deals with the way in which the literary realistic paradigm, which had dominated Welsh playwriting in English from the beginning of the twentieth century, is slowly being superseded by other, often non-realistic, forms of representation. The second chapter deals with selected plays of Die Edwards. It interrogates the innovative ways this playwright constructs place and uses language to represent his highly politicised reading of Welsh reality. The third chapter focuses on selected plays written on historical themes and place. The chapter interrogates motivations to write history drama and the different forms history plays have taken in recent Welsh drama in English. The fourth chapter deals with gendered readings of place. Selected plays and two performances are discussed on the basis of a reading of Luce Irigaray's theory of 'woman as place.' The final chapter approaches place from a theoretical angle that unites the postcolonial paradigm and the new concept of sustainability. It is argued that, despite the shortcomings of the central tenets of postcolonial theory when applied to Wales, the framework of postcolonial theory offers valuable new ways of reading place in Welsh drama in English. A bibliography is attached.

PRESENTACIÓN La última década del pasado siglo y la primera del actual serán recordadas en un futuro próximo como el período de transición entre la era de papel y la era digital. Durante estos veinte años, casi todo el material de papel se ha reciclado en formato electrónico. Por este motivo, la mayoría de las empresas se han visto obligadas a modificar sus estructuras de trabajo para seguir siendo competitivas en el mercado internacional. A día de hoy, ya es una realidad que muchas de las empresas que no han actualizado sus sistemas de comunicación están tendiendo a desaparecer gradualmente o han pasado a ser sustituidas por alternativas más rentables. En este sentido, la banca es una de las industrias más poderosas en la actualidad, siendo organizaciones constituidas por sus gobiernos con la función de administrar y organizar la economía de un país y de sus ciudadanos. Por lo tanto, los bancos no podían quedarse atrás en este proceso de digitalización. Como resultado, todos ellos tienen sus propias páginas web, donde pueden promover su imagen y sus servicios en todo el mundo por un precio ridículo en comparación con las formas más tradicionales de publicidad. Esta tesis doctoral se centra en la realización de un análisis de género sobre el lenguaje utilizado por los bancos en sus páginas web corporativas. En este caso hemos elegido el inglés como lengua franca de las páginas web de banca corporativa, lo que podría ser una buena contribución al campo de la investigación lingüística, ya que combina tres elementos que son fundamentales en nuestra sociedad actual: inglés (idioma), Internet (comunicación) y bancos (economía). MARCO TEÓRICO Y OBJETIVOS DE LA INVESTIGACIÓN Para el desarrollo de este proyecto, nos centramos en la elaboración de un análisis de género que establezca el lenguaje utilizado por los bancos en sus páginas web corporativas (Bhatia, 1993; Dudley -Evans, 1986; Swales, 1990). La cantidad de bancos analizados en este estudio es de sesenta y cuatro. La elección de los mismos se ha basado en el estudio publicado por la revista The Banker (2010), que clasificó a los cincuenta bancos más poderosos del mundo. Los otros catorce bancos fueron seleccionados entre conocidos bancos británicos, americanos y españoles, por razones de proximidad y relevancia en nuestro estudio. Con el fin de ser más selectivos enmarcamos nuestro estudio en el espacio que utilizan los bancos para presentarse en sus páginas web: 'Quienes Somos¿ (`About us¿). La introducción de esta investigación incluye seis capítulos que presentan diferentes temas teóricos incluyendo el inglés como lengua franca (Crystal, 1997; Firth, 1996), el inglés bancario (Casu et al., 2006; Marks, 2007), las taxonomías y la tipología textual en inglés bancario (Ruiz Garrido, 2010; Palmer, 2010), al igual que otros elementos fundamentales para nuestros propósitos como son el tipo de lenguaje electrónico (O'Hare et al., 2004; Posteguillo, 2002; Yus, 2011), y el diseño de páginas web (Alejo - González, 2005). En este sentido, nuestro estudio se divide en dos partes que están claramente conectadas: macro y microestructura. Por un lado, el estudio de la macroestructura se centra en el análisis de las partes generales y estructurales de las páginas web corporativas de bancos. Por otra parte, la microestructura presenta las principales formas de lenguaje y el vocabulario utilizado en cada una de las secciones. Estas dos partes se complementan con un estudio acerca del formato no lingüístico de las páginas web de bancos. En definitiva, el objetivo de este estudio es determinar el tipo de lenguaje y la estructuración de las páginas web corporativas de los bancos. PLANTEAMIENTOS Y METODOLOGÍA UTILIZADA Como hemos explicado previamente, nuestro estudio se ha dividido en dos partes, la macroestructura y la microestructura. A continuación presentamos nuestro modelo de análisis de textos. En referencia al estudio de la macroestructura, nuestra tesis comenzó con un estudio inicial para determinar la sección `Quienes Somos¿ en las páginas web de los bancos analizados, y las diferentes sub-secciones que la forman. En este caso, descubrimos que algunas de estas sub-secciones debían ser obligatorias y algunas otras opcionales. Creemos que la razón para determinar si una sección es obligatoria u opcional variará de acuerdo a los intereses de la empresa y del tipo de información a publicar. De acuerdo con nuestros criterios, se estableció que la sección sería obligatoria si su presencia se observa en más del 50 % de las páginas analizadas. En este caso, esta información se incluirá en el documento. Por otro lado, hay otras secciones en la que su presencia es opcional, si el porcentaje se encuentra entre el 30 y el 50% de las páginas analizadas. El mostrar o no a los miembros del grupo depende de los intereses y necesidades personales de los bancos. En otras palabras, un banco no debe publicar una sección presentando los miembros del grupo o patrocinadores si éstos pueden dar lugar a una promoción negativa del banco. Una vez que hemos determinado la estructura de la página de inicio y los movimientos que forman la sección `Quienes Somos¿, nos centramos en las cuantificaciones de las formas en cada una de las sub-secciones que hemos considerado necesarias para formar lo que denominaremos como género: párrafos para texto, oraciones por párrafo, palabras por párrafo, y palabras por oración. Con estos resultados, tendremos una visión superficial del aspecto de la página web. La tercera parte del estudio para establecer el modelo de la macroestructura consiste en la búsqueda de los diferentes contenidos de los párrafos y las oraciones. Esta parte del análisis nos permitirá determinar los contenidos utilizados en cada tipo de documento y su extensión dentro de cada una de las secciones presentes en el género `Quienes Somos¿. Con este tercer análisis consideramos que la macroestructura del género lingüístico estará completa. Seguidamente, una vez completado el análisis de la macroestructura, empezamos a trabajar con la microestructura. En este caso, sugerimos que se desarrollen 5 apartados: tipo de lenguaje, composición morfológica, terminología, formalidad y sintaxis. En el análisis del tipo de lenguaje nos centraremos en cada una de las secciones para determinar si el lenguaje es informativo, promocional, persuasivo, o una combinación de cualquiera de los tres. En el caso de los bancos descubrimos que el lenguaje es una combinación de lenguaje informativo y promocional, y que tan sólo en una sección podemos defdinirlo como parcialmente persuasivo. Pensamos que el predominio del lenguaje informativo y promocional se basa en la necesidad de los bancos de presentarse como empresas serias con una información que debe parecer real y objetiva. No obstante, debemos tener en cuenta que los bancos son un tipo de negocio y, como tal, su principal objetivo es la obtención de beneficios. Por lo tanto, los bancos necesitan un lenguaje verdadero, seguro y atractivo al mismo tiempo (Casu et al, 2006). Creemos que el uso de lenguaje persuasivo no está conectado con la imagen que los bancos quieren mostrar, contrariamente a otros tipos de empresas, como las cadenas de restaurantes, bebidas, supermercados o productos electrónicos. Después de determinar el tipo de lenguaje en las diferentes secciones, continuamos nuestra investigación con un análisis de la composición morfológica de los diferentes movimientos que forman el género. En este caso, hemos clasificado las palabras en grupos morfológicos: sustantivos, verbos, conectores, adjetivos, adverbios, pronombres, artículos y preposiciones. Con estos resultados, podemos establecer porcentajes para determinar el valor de cada grupo morfológico en el modelo estándar del texto. Este análisis proporciona resultados con los elementos más comunes de cada categoría, lo que nos permite la creación de nuestro propio modelo. Por otra parte, la naturaleza de estas palabras se clasifica en categorías para determinar el tipo de terminología en base a la lengua analizada. En nuestro caso, los resultados mostraron que la terminología más usual estaba conectada a los negocios y la industria. Con los resultados sobre la morfología de los textos podremos analizar el nivel de formalidad en cada sección. Como era de esperar, el tipo de lenguaje encontrado en los bancos es muy formal. Este lenguaje está conectado a una industria muy exigente que busca seriedad y confianza. Por lo tanto, los bancos deben utilizar un nivel de formalidad ligado a la altura de las expectativas de los clientes. Los resultados mostraron un uso muy variado de nombres, artículos, adjetivos y preposiciones, y por el contrario una presencia limitada de verbos, adverbios, y pronombres. La metodología que hemos tomado en este análisis es la que presentaron Heylighen y Dewaelee (1999), quienes desarrollaron una fórmula con resultados porcentuales que evitan la ambigüedad, como es el caso de las 4 máximas de Grice (1975): "Formalidad = [(frecuencia nombres + frec. Artículos + frec. Adjetivos + frec. Preposiciones) - (freq. verbos + frec. Adverbios + frec. Pronombres) + 100] / 2" El último elemento de este análisis de la microestructura es la sintaxis. En este caso, y después de analizar todos los textos en cuanto a tipo de lenguaje, morfología, terminología y formalidad, llegamos a la conclusión de que la estructura habitual en estos documentos es el estándar de la lengua inglesa: sujeto + verbo + objeto + complementos. El alto porcentaje de formalidad en este tipo de documento en comparación con otros documentos de naturaleza diferente certifica el tipo de sintaxis estándar. Como complemento del análisis de la macroestructura y la microestructura, esta investigación no estaría completa sin un análisis del formato de las propias páginas web corporativas de los bancos. En este caso se estudiaron diferentes elementos de la página web como fuentes, colores y estilos. Los resultados mostraron que la mayoría de los textos utilizan la fuente Arial, con un tamaño de 12 en el texto y 14 en los encabezados, espaciado simple, y que el color de fuente es negro. Además, los encabezados deben ir en negrita. En referencia a los colores de la página, encontramos que el color primario tiende a ser blanco, acompañado de un color secundario que puede ser cualquiera de los siguientes: rojo, azul o verde. En función de las necesidades y los valores del banco se puede elegir cualquiera de los tres colores secundarios, pero de acuerdo con nuestro estudio, creemos que el color azul es el que mejor representa los principales valores bancarios. RESULTADOS Y CONCLUSIÓN Después de analizar toda la información y los datos que hemos recopilado para este estudio, podríamos desarrollar nuestras directrices para crear el género textual `Quienes Somos¿ para páginas web corporativas de bancos. No obstante, la validez de este modelo se debe presentar en un modelo práctico con el fin de demostrar que los resultados obtenidos podrían utilizarse en un contexto real. En este campo de investigación, hemos elaborado y aplicado todos los datos obtenidos en nuestro estudio tanto sobre la macroestructura, la microestructura y el formato, y hemos creado la sección `Quién Somos¿ de un banco ficticio que hemos denominado 'Standard Bank'. Este banco ficticio incluye todas las secciones obligatorias y opcionales dentro del género con el fin de mostrar los resultados obtenidos. En primer lugar, hemos diseñado la macroestructura de cada sección, con la cantidad de párrafos, oraciones, palabras y el tipo de contenidos que hemos determinado en nuestro modelo estándar. Seguidamente, desarrollamos el lenguaje y el contenido de cada sección individualmente siguiendo los criterios que hemos establecido en cada una de las secciones de la microestructura. De este modo, podemos desarrollar los contenidos específicos de cada sección teniendo en cuenta el tipo de lenguaje de cada párrafo (informativo, persuasivo o promocional), así como la terminología específica. Tras la elaboración del primer borrador, analizamos y comparamos los resultados con el modelo estándar para hacer las modificaciones pertinentes en relación a la morfología, sintaxis y terminología. La validez de los textos se puede llevar a cabo una vez se ha finalizado la redacción del texto para cada sección. Simplemente comparamos los resultados del modelo estándar creado con el texto final. En el caso de la macroestructura la validez es fácil de evaluar, al contrario que con la microestructura. En este caso, intentaremos que ninguno de los parámetros del texto creado varíe por encima de dos puntos del valor porcentual del modelo estándar. Finalmente, a pesar de algunas limitaciones y dificultades que pudimos encontrar en el proceso de elaboración y desarrollo de este proyecto, hemos sido finalmente capaces de crear un modelo práctico del género `Quienes Somos¿ para páginas web corporativas de bancos, siguiendo los resultados que establecimos en nuestro modelo estándar, tanto en relación a la macroestructura y microestructura, así como en el formato de la página web. La aplicación de los resultados en la página web corporativa de un banco ficticio demuestra la validez de nuestros resultados y la posibilidad de aplicar nuestra metodología a la creación de textos estándar para lenguajes específicos. En resumen, este proyecto demuestra la posibilidad de establecer modelos estándar de la lengua inglesa en páginas web de bancos. Este tipo de proyecto es positivo para las empresas e instituciones que necesitan mejorar la comunicación con los clientes. Consideramos que las empresas multinacionales y locales deberían valorar la posibilidad de trabajar con lingüistas profesionales, que puedan desarrollar un estudio personalizado de las necesidades de la empresa y trabajar en conjunto con los expertos de marketing con el fin de presentar los productos con un lenguaje adecuado y adaptado, siguiendo unos criterios estándar predeterminados.

The aim of this research was to explore the impact of Welsh-English bilingualism on the linguistic and cognitive skills of children with moderate learning difficulties (MLD). Despite there being an abundance of literature about the linguistic and cognitive abilities of typically-developing children, little is known regarding bilingual children with moderate learning difficulties. Therefore, the overarching aim of this research is to make a significant contribution to knowledge about the linguistic and cognitive abilities of bilingual children with MLD. Research into the linguistic abilities of typically developing bilingual children often demonstrates that their vocabulary development is slower than that of monolinguals but ‘catches-up’ with increased experience and exposure and literacy research suggests there is no detrimental effect on literacy skills as a result of bilingualism. Research into the executive functioning (or cognitive) abilities of typically developing bilingual children has often demonstrated that bilingual children benefit from executive functioning advantages, not only in linguistic tasks but also in non-linguistic tasks. However, little is known regarding bilingual children with moderate learning difficulties, particularly in the Welsh-English context. Children in this study were either Welsh-English bilinguals from one of three home language backgrounds (L1 Welsh, L1 English or simultaneous bilinguals) attending Welsh-medium education or English monolinguals attending English-medium education in Wales. Children with moderate learning difficulties were compared to typically developing chronologically age matched peers (10-11 year olds) and developmentally age matched peers (7-8 year olds) from each of the home language backgrounds; the monolinguals used as the control group. All of the bilingual children were tested on a range of standardised vocabulary and reading measures, in English and Welsh, and on a number of executive functioning measures (inhibition, switching and attention) that were adapted from the current literature most often discussed in relation to the cognitive effects of bilingualism. The findings of the research were mixed with regard to the impact of bilingualism but indicated that bilingual children with moderate learning difficulties perform at developmentally appropriate levels in both linguistic and cognitive domains, and in some tasks performed better than the developmentally age matched children. Similarly to research into typically developing Welsh-English bilingual children, these findings suggested that home language does impact Welsh and English language development and that bilingual children with MLD do not necessarily ‘catch-up’ with their monolingual peers by age 11. The executive functioning findings indicated no consistent advantage for the bilingual children over the monolingual children. The findings of this research did however indicate that children with moderate learning difficulties possibly responded ‘qualitatively’ differently on the executive functioning tasks which may have implications for education. The findings contribute to the field of bilingualism and moderate learning difficulties. They may also be of use to parents and schools regarding the impact of Welsh-medium education on children who are experiencing difficulties with the curriculum (i.e. children with moderate learning difficulties) and may be of use to educational professionals in planning support for bilinguals with moderate learning difficulties.

This thesis is a comprehensive reassessment of the role of Saint Christopher wall paintings in English (and Welsh) churches. Although the study focuses primarily on parish churches (where the majority of mural paintings survive), it also considers cathedrals, abbeys and other medieval buildings where such imagery is extant or documented. Welsh churches are also examined where appropriate, though there are only a few surviving Saint Christopher images in this geographical area. The investigation spans the period from the emergence of Saint Christopher representations in illumination (c.1250), to the beginning of the sixteenth century, when wall painting depictions of the saint were at their zenith (c.1500 for sake of convenience). The thesis begins with an examination and assessment of universal image function and reception in medieval church and society. This is a central issue to the study of churches, and it is therefore necessary to dedicate a whole chapter to the subject. Through the examination of individual paintings and documents relating to specific churches, the thesis then goes on to focus on three main themes related to Saint Christopher and his cult. First, it considers the role of Saint Christopher wall paintings (and other types of images where appropriate), secondly, the location of Saint Christopher murals within church buildings, and thirdly, the different methods of patronage associated with the wall paintings. The survey also establishes a long-overdue and revised chronology of the entire corpus of Saint Christopher wall paintings based on an examination of architectural, documentary and visual evidence, and on comparisons with other types of media from England and the Continent (such as sculpture, illumination and woodcuts). Most murals can be dated to within the nearest quarter or third of a century (and to the nearest century if the date of execution is uncertain).

The academic study of English-language theatre in Wales as a discrete subject is a relatively small field. Indeed, only three books on Welsh theatre have been published during the 1990s. Moreover, there are those who would argue that the idea of a differentiated Welsh, English-language theatre is an oxymoron. English-language theatre in Wales shares a linguistic mode of communication with England's theatre and a problem is that it resembles the formal properties contained within its larger neighbour's theatre practices to the point where disaggregation might seem a forlorn objective. The stress on language, however, ignores the fundamental significance of issues of class, political orientation and socio-cultural complexion, which is where important definitions of the identity of Welsh theatre can be found. Wales is a different country and therefore we might expect it to manifest distinctive theatre practices. But the procedures employed by the Arts Council have the effect of standardising professional theatre and of discouraging the development of critical thinking, which disqualifies many of the distinguishing characteristics of English-language, Welsh theatre. This is particularly evident in those performance practices which emanate from a working-class lived experience. The Arts Council's method of organisation can be described as a process of incorporation. This thesis responds to the situation by investigating the relationship between the Arts Council's disciplinary procedures, which determine incorporation, the promotion of normalised English theatre and the marginalisation of Welsh, working-class theatre practices. The problem of Welsh theatre is depicted here as contingent on the dissemination of English concepts of high standards, which is central to the post-war Arts Council project. Thus, the main argument revolves around the idea that the notion of theatre in Wales is manipulated by an external agency. Part One of the thesis marshals concepts about power which can explain hegemonic, or dominant, cultural structures. It includes specific reference to theories advanced by Raymond Williams, Michel Foucault, Antonio Gramsci and Edward Said. In the second part, the argument progresses through the presentation of research about the disciplinary procedures of the Arts Council as they impact on theatre forms. It also examines the standardisation of theatre practices in the UK, as a whole, and the position of Welsh theatre in that context. Finally, it addresses the status of theatre practices in an archetypal area of the south Wales Valleys, through a micro-analysis of Aberdare and its immediate environs.

This thesis examines the proliferation of ageing characters to be found in twentieth and twenty-first-century Welsh fiction in English and argues that older people have a special significance in this body of literature. The study employs a mixed methodology, combining close comparative analysis of fictional texts with theoretical perspectives taken from cultural and literary theory, philosophy, sociology, psychoanalysis, and postcolonial studies. The introduction situates my work alongside the fields of literary gerontology and Welsh writing in English, giving focus to strands of research which have synergies with this thesis. Chapter 2 examines the influence of stereotypes of ageing on older characterisations in Anglophone Welsh fiction and argues that writers undermine and complicate these stereotypes. Representations of gossips, burdens, those with dementia, wise older people, inspirational grandmothers, older men and grandfathers, and unmarried women are analysed. Chapter 3 focuses on renderings of older subjectivity, considering protagonists’ experiences of physical ageing, alongside tensions between the changing older body and a more constant self within, and texts which represent changes in experiences of time and memory. Writers are argued to give voice to the frail and the marginalised and to reveal the influence of socioeconomic and cultural factors on experiences of ageing. Chapter 4 asserts that intergenerational relationships involving older characters tend to symbolise societal change and to reflect class and linguistic divisions between generations. Ageing characters, particularly older women, are shown to become links to the past and to act as remembrancers of local and national histories. They also signify a conception of Welsh identity grounded in speaking Welsh, devotion to Nonconformist worship, and a stoic determination to survive. These characters often perform the role of storyteller, passing on suppressed knowledge and traditional values. It is argued that, despite their regard for the past, the novels and short stories discussed avoid the dangers of nostalgia through the ambivalence of younger characters to the identities they are bequeathed, the self-reflexivity of several texts, and older characters who are grounded in the present and concerned about the future.

This PhD dissertation examines narrative in early Welsh and English poetry, and more particularly how, where, and why we find temporal progression and radiality in the poetic narrative of both literatures. The term ‘radiality’ is discussed by Joseph Clancy, who, in introducing his translations of medieval Welsh poems, describes them as generally having ‘“radial” structure, circling about, repeating, and elaborating the central theme’. In making this investigation, this PhD dissertation is informed by narrative theory, particularly the model proposed by William Labov, and it contains a detailed methodological section, highlighting how I adapt this model to make it work better with my corpus. The model is further developed so as to enable the creation of some statistical data, which is deployed alongside close reading in looking at trends over a corpus and between different corpora. My corpus consists on the one hand in all Welsh poems composed before c. 1250 with significant narrative elements or containing a list-like narrative. These are set in contrast with English poems composed before c. 1250 narrating the same subjects or containing the same stylistic features. Although the comparison is primarily between Welsh and English poetry, I also compare texts to their sources or analogues, primarily in Latin or French, as looking at how the poems depart from shared traditions is key in examining the particular tendencies of each literature. Following the model developed by Sarah Higley, the Welsh and English texts are contrasted with one another to highlight the idiosyncracies of both. In the first chapter, I examine the role temporal markers and direct speech play in the progression and radiality of early Welsh and English secular battle poetry. In most but not all cases, there is a clear opposition between extended and clearly marked narrative in the English and shorter narratives with less temporal deixis in the Welsh. Following this, Chapter 2 moves to the future to look at narrative at the End of Days, where markedly different patterns of contrast are found between the poems. I seek to explain why this is the case, looking in particular at the role of time-reference in determining narrativity. Chapter 3 begins with a detailed study of Iesu a Mair a’r Cynhaeaf Gwyrthiol (‘Jesus and Mary and the Miraculous Harvest’) and compares the way it tells its story with the narration found in its analogues, noting how and why this Welsh text has particularly clear, in some ways almost prose-like, narrative. The chapter then expands to compare narratives of Christ’s birth and early life in early Middle Welsh and Middle English poetry more generally, while investigating their relative absence in Old English. IChapter 4 moves away from thematic comparison to examine a particular structure: the list. Y Gofeiss6ys Byt, an early Welsh narrative poem in many ways exceptional, is studied in detail, and the way in which listing interacts with narrative in that text serves as a springboard for a wider discussion of list/narrative interplay in early Welsh and English poetry.

The English and Welsh water and sewerage industry was privatised in 1989 and is characterised by a series of regional monopolies. The majority of consumers currently have no choice in their supplier. The industry is regulated by Ofwat to guarantee the best value for customers whilst enabling the companies to undertake their activities. The motivation of this thesis is to examine the effectiveness of regulation. The aim is to examine five research questions. Firstly, has regulation encouraged convergence amongst the efficiency scores? Secondly, have the 1999 and 2004 price reviews been effective in improving efficiency? Thirdly, is there a capex bias in the industry? The final two aims come from a methodological perspective: firstly, to allow for the incorporation of environmental variables within the measurement of efficiency and secondly, to incorporate the long asset life of capital by incorporating capital as an intertemporal factor of production. Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) is employed to measure efficiency which is a non-parametric technique that creates a linear frontier over the data. Convergence is examined by drawing from the growth literature to examine -and -convergence. A three-stage DEA model is applied to examine the influence of environmental variables and to obtain an environmental adjusted DEA efficiencey score. Finally, the intertemporal nature of capitala is incorporated through a dynamic DEA model. This thesis reports that whilst regulation has produced limited improvements in the average efficiency, regulation has been effective in encouraging the least efficient firms to catch up with the frontier companies. Ofwat's tightening of the price review in 1999 has produced significant improvements in efficiency, whereas the 2004 price review was relatively lax and had no significant influence. Finally, the thesis highlights that the current regulatory framework induces a preference towards capital expenditure which can have implications on the consumer's bill.

Effects of orthographic transparency on literacy acquisition were examined by comparing data from children learning to read in Albanian, Welsh, and English. The Welsh and especially Albanian orthographies are extremely transparent, whereas the English orthography is notorious for its lack of transparency. In the pilot study, twenty Year I Albanian children were given a reading test consisting of a 100-word stratified sample of decreasing written frequency. These children were able to read accurately 80% of the words; reading latency was a direct effect of word length (R2 =. 89); and errors tended to be mispronunciations rather than real word replacements, with hardly any null responses. These results were compared with Ellis and Hooper (2001), where the same design was used with English and Welsh children of the same age, but with one more year of formal reading instruction. The Albanian children read more words than the English and Welsh children, but they had longer reading latencies. Like the Welsh children, but unlike the English children, the Albanian children made more nonword errors. These results suggest that children acquire reading faster the more transparent the orthography, and that shallow orthographies promote an initial reliance on a phonological recoding strategy. The main study examined reading, spelling, phonological and orthographic skills of 6-, 8- and 10-year old Albanian, English and Welsh children. No cross-language differences were found in reading. In spelling, however, Albanian children could spell significantly more words correctly than the Welsh children, who in turn could spell more words than the English children. Furthermore, the youngest Albanian children outperformed same-age English and Welsh children in the Phoneme Deletion task and Nonword Spelling. English children, however, were extremely fast and accurate on the Wordchains task, whereas Albanian children were not. These results suggest that children acquire spelling faster the more transparent the orthography, and that shallow orthographies promote a fine-grained level of phonological awareness in young children. Deep orthographies encourage children to rely more on strategies based on word-level orthographic representations. Finally, regression analyses, revealed that phonological skills predicted early reading ability of Albanian and Welsh children only. Orthographic skills predicted skilled reading, however, the contribution of these skills was much stronger for the older English group. In spelling, phonological skills were the only predictor in Albanian across the three age groups. For the English sample, phonological skills predicted early spelling and orthographic skills were the best predictors of spelling ability in older children. The Welsh age-groups showed mixed patterns. These findings, suggest the contribution of phonological and orthographic skills to reading and spelling development is dependent on orthographic transparency.

This thesis examines the prohibition of incest in England and Wales and is written within a New Legal Realist paradigm. The selection of the paradigm has freed the approach from a traditional black letter method and allowed for the use of multiple methodologies that are appropriate to the data being investigated. The thesis begins by exploring the legislative action taken against incest in England and Wales from the Anglo-Saxon period through to the 2003 Sexual Offences Act. It finds that there has been little consistency in the regulation of incestuous activity across differing historical periods. The investigation identifies the reasons why action was taken against incest and what changes to the nature of the offence, including prohibited kin and sexual acts, were made over time. Empirical analysis of the Report entitled Setting the Boundaries, which was the cornerstone of the incumbent legislation, was undertaken using Rhetorical Political Analysis. This allowed the discovery of stories and narratives which have supported the recommendations of the Report. These recommendations have ultimately become the incumbent legislation regulating incestuous sexual activity. The thesis also identifies a dissonance between the reasoning used when producing the recommendations, and that used to justify the recommendations during the parliamentary process. Data concerning the sentencing of individuals prosecuted for commission of actions infringing the 2003 Act is analysed and compared to the previous legislation, and concerns over the compatibility of the ‘incest’ provisions in the 2003 Act with rules governing sentencing are raised. The compatibility of the provisions and the need to register on the Violent and Sex Offender Register is also investigated, as are previous legal challenges concerning registration and the impact of registration upon the offender and their position within society. Finally, the position of the incumbent provisions is understood in light of current European Convention on Human Rights norms. Rather than using case precedent to argue for or against the compatibility of the domestic provisions, the cases are used as ‘data’ to investigate the provisions. An attempt to ascertain a European consensus on incest is also made. The investigation reveals that the reframed ‘incest’ provisions of the Sexual Offences Act 2003 may breach Articles 8 and, 8 + 14 of the European Convention on Human Rights.

This thesis investigates phonetic and phonological variation in the bilingual repertoire of adolescent Welsh-English bilinguals living in North Wales. It contributes to linguistic research by, firstly, providing an account of language variation in an under-studied area (N. Wales) and context (regional minority language bilingualism) and, secondly, by examining cross-linguistic variation, and the constraints on this variation, in bilingual speech. The two variables under discussion differ in how they are realised in the two languages: /l/ is thought to be heavily velarised in both languages as a result of long-term contact and phonological convergence. Variation in the production of /r/ and realisation of coda /r/ has hitherto been reported as language-specific, though frequent transfer is said to occur from Welsh to English in predominantly Welsh-speaking areas (e.g. Penhallurick 2004: 110; Wells 1982: 390).The first aim of the study is therefore to quantify claims of phonological convergence and transfer in the speech of Welsh-English bilinguals by using a variationist sociolinguistics methodology (e.g. Labov 1966), which also considers the influence of linguistic and extra-linguistic factors on variation. Particular attention is paid to differences between a majority Welsh-speaking town and a town where English is the main language. A further distinction is made between those from Welsh-speaking homes and those from English-speaking homes who have acquired Welsh through immersion education. The second aim is to make empirically-informed theoretical claims about the nature of phonological convergence and transfer, and conceptualise cross-linguistic interaction in the speech of Welsh-English bilinguals in light of existing frameworks. Data (sociolinguistic interviews and wordlists) were collected in Welsh and English from 32 Welsh-English bilinguals aged 16-18. The sample was equally stratified in terms of speaker sex, home language, and area. The two towns compared in the study are Caernarfon (N.W. Wales, where c.88% of the population speak Welsh) and Mold (N.E. Wales, where c. 20% Welsh of the population speak Welsh). The results indicate that English [ɫ] tends to be lighter than Welsh [ɫ] in word-initial onset position for females, and in word-medial intervocalic position for both males and females. The data also show linguistic influences on the realisation of [ɫ] in both languages, and differences between males and females. The realisation of coda /r/ and production of [r] and [ɾ] in English are confined to the speech of those from Welsh-speaking homes in Caernarfon. In Welsh, use of [ɹ] is widespread and is constrained by a more complex interaction between area, home language, and sex. On the basis of these findings, I conclude that features which have undergone phonological convergence due to long-term language contact may be subject to language-specific constraints when implemented phonetically. In terms of transfer, I argue for a ternary distinction between interference, transfer, and transfer which is constrained by linguistic and/or extra-linguistic factors (cf. Grosjean 2012). Finally, I suggest that Mufwene’s (2001) notion of the ‘feature pool’ is the most succinct way of conceptualising Welsh-English transfer and differentiate between more focussed accents of English and a less-focussed variety of North Wales Welsh.