This study examined givenness in discourse via passive constructions in research articles. While it is commonly held in grammar books and grammar classes that the passive voice is the counterpart of the active voice, the present study argues that Argument movement in passive constructions can act as a syntactic device contributing to sound…

This study examines the syntax of DP deletion and pragmatics of DP movement in passive voice from applied linguistics methodology. The data collection was a purposive sampling method as the study specifically alternated the data from Q1 SCOPUS publications, Thai national publications (TCI 1), and Thai undergraduate students' independent studies…

EFL learners commonly infer word meanings while reading. However, previous research suggested that a large number of lexical inferencing attempts were far from success (Nylander, 2014; Qian, 2005). This study aims to examine possible factors of failure in lexical inferencing, with strategy use as a main focus. Eight participants were asked to read…

The question of whether second languages (L2s) are best learned implicitly or explicitly has been a topic of much empirical discourse, with the majority of studies pointing to the benefits of explicit instruction when learning L2 grammar rules. However, given the focus on grammar, it is unclear how generalizable these findings are to other…

Second-language (L2) testing researchers have explored the relationship between speakers' overall speaking ability, reflected by holistic scores, and the speakers' performance on speaking subcomponents, reflected by analytic scores (e.g., McNamara, 1990; Sato, 2011). These research studies have advanced applied linguists' understanding of how…

As expert intercultural communicators, translators constantly face the challenges of comprehending and producing language that is stylistically appropriate in various communicative contexts. To scale these challenges, they must acquire advanced levels of sociolinguistic competence. Although sociolinguistic competence is considered an essential…

This interview with James E. Purpura via Zoom comes in uncertain times, with CVOID-19 turning into a global pandemic. The author delves into different issues related to James E. Purpura's early career and his Language Assessment Quarterly (LAQ) editorial experience. Then moves on and talk about his research and teaching. The final part will…

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,…

Background: Numerous studies have identified a gap between the writing skills of engineering program graduates and the demands of writing in the workplace; however, few studies have analyzed the writing of practitioners and students to better understand that gap and inform teaching materials. Purpose: This study sought to compare word-level,…

Prior research has shown that EFL learners who wrote collaboratively with partners using wikis improved the content quality and language accuracy of their L2 individual writing more than students who wrote individually. Drawing on the dataset from Hsu and Lo's study, the current study explores the nature of the students' collaborative dialogue…

This article draws on an approach that conceptualizes L2 learning difficulty in terms of implicit and explicit knowledge. In a study with first language Mexican Spanish university-level learners (n = 30), their teachers (n = 11), and applied linguistics experts (n = 3), we investigated the relationship between (a) these groups' difficulty…

Few systematic efforts have been reported to develop higher degree by research student skills for writing publishable articles in science and technology fields. There is a need to address this lack in the light of the current importance of publication to science research students and the high supervisor workload entailed in repeated draft…

Many scholars have noted the disjunction between language instruction at the lower- and upper levels of FL study (Byrnes, 2002; Kraemer, 2008; Lord, 2014; Maxim, 2005; Schultz, 2000; Swaffar & Arens, 2005). Whereas lower-division courses tend to focus primarily on learning grammatical patterns and the "four skills," upper-level…

Presenting a persuasive authorial stance is a major challenge for second language (L2) writers in writing academic research. Failure to present an effective authorial stance often results in poor evaluation, which compromises a writer's research potential. This study proposes a "textlinguistic" approach to advanced academic writing to complement a…

This volume offers a comprehensive, up-to-date, empirical and methodological view over the new scenarios and environments for language teaching and learning recently emerged (e.g. blended learning, e-learning, ubiquitous learning, social learning, autonomous learning or lifelong learning), and also over some of the new approaches to language…