The present study evaluated if lexical expertise, defined as the quality and quantity of a reader's word representations, influenced college students' ability to learn novel homophones while reading. In two experiments novel homophones (e.g. 'brale') and novel nonhomophones (e.g. 'gloobs') were embedded in sentences. In Experiment 1, novel…

The study explores the attitudes of undergraduate Flagship students in the United States towards Arabic-accented speech in English. It examines the Familiarity Principle among these students and analyzes their attitudes based on socio-intellectual status, aesthetic quality, and dynamism of Arabic-accented speech. The study also discusses the…

With the emergence of different varieties of English in the world, the issue of intelligibility has attracted many researchers' attention. While a large number of studies have focused on the intelligibility of different English varieties for native speakers, few of them have involved Chinese learners of English as participants; yet, they…

Glosses have been assumed to be effective for developing vocabulary. This article discusses a within-subject quasi-experiment which investigated the relative effectiveness of four vocabulary gloss types: L1 gloss, L1 gloss with phonological guidance, L2 gloss, and L2 gloss with phonological guidance. The participants were 63 Iranian undergraduate…

The present study investigated Korean-accented English (KoE) intelligibility and conducted experiments in Korea, Japan, and the USA to test the benefits of listener's familiarity and identify the key phonological features of KoE. In the experiments, the participants were asked to transcribe the target (KoE) of 100 English statements each…

This dissertation examines the Chinese practice of adopting English names in the context of Chinese international students studying at American institutions of higher education. This work adopts the position of Bourdieu (1991) that there is a fundamental unity of the market, in that economic and political capital is connected to linguistic and…

In Asia, English is used as a lingua franca (ELF; Kirkpatrick, 2010). For Thai university graduates to be successful in their future careers, being able to understand various accents with Thailand's major trading partners, particularly American, Chinese, and Japanese, seems vital. As a listening test which includes these accents is needed, the…

Syntactic priming studies in second language (L2) have contributed to understanding how L2 speakers' syntactic knowledge is represented and processed. However, little is known about social influences on L2 speakers' syntactic processing and learning. The present study investigated whether L2 speakers' syntactic priming is influenced by social…

Perceptions in English accents are of paramount importance to understand the use of English language in communication nowadays. Asian English accents recently become a trend of real communicative environment that Thai learners are getting more acquainted for work and socialize. Thus, this study aimed to investigate 152 first-year Thai…

Many language teachers use Information and Communications Technology (ICT) in their classrooms to create tasks, quizzes, or polls with general online learning platforms. Few teachers have experience, however, of incorporating online corpus tools in their teaching or assessment practices. This paper will explore how autonomous learning can be…

This paper investigates trainee teachers' preferences for English pronunciation and accent, enrolled in a teacher education program in Turkey with respect to listening activities, after they have familiarized themselves with the diverse English accents. Data has been gathered through semi-open-ended questionnaires, which are later analysed with…

Scholars have argued for the inclusion of different spoken varieties of English in high-stakes listening tests to better represent the global use of English. However, doing so may introduce additional construct-irrelevant variance due to accent familiarity and the shared first language (L1) advantage, which could threaten test fairness. However,…

This study investigates the perception and production of a specific type of metaphoric gesture that mimics melody in speech, also called "pitch gesture," in the learning of L2 suprasegmental features. In a between-subjects design, a total of 106 participants with no previous knowledge of Chinese were asked to observe (Experiment 1) and…

This study aims to examine English as a Foreign Language (EFL) learners' perceptions of the factors influencing their in-class willingness to communicate (WTC) in English. Having been selected through criterion sampling method, the participants consisted of 32 undergraduate EFL learners who took the English course at Balikesir University in…

In much previous research, language listeners were found to perform differently when listening to a second language (L2) spoken in foreign/native accents. Influential factors have not been ascertained. This study aimed to gain new insights into this issue. 82 Mandarin speakers of different L2 (English) proficiency and different degrees of…