Rhetorical word stress has been identified as a feature of public, presentational, and didactic speech styles in Spanish through theoretical descriptions, intuitive accounts, and laboratory-based empirical research. Most scholars agree that non-primary stress is acoustically marked by pitch and primary stress is marked by segment lengthening. The…

For researchers in the global South, international recognition in science arguably involves engaging with the norms, ideas, and people leading research activity in the global North. This article explores the relationship between international research collaboration and the publication activity of highly cited researchers in Brazil, a country that…

This study introduces a model of lexical proficiency based on novel computational indices related to word context. The indices come from an updated version of the Tool for the Automatic Analysis of Lexical Sophistication (TAALES) and include associative, lexical, and semantic measures of word context. Human ratings of holistic lexical proficiency…

A word-spotting task is used in Spanish to test the way in which polysyllabic letter-strings are parsed in this language. Monosyllabic words (e.g., "bar") embedded at the beginning of a pseudoword were immediately followed by either a coda-forming consonant (e.g., "barto") or a vowel (e.g., "baros"). In the former…

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…

Previous research has shown that there is a relationship between language and identity, and thus the present study focuses on ethnic group affiliation (EGA) as a part of one's ethnic group identity and its association with speech constructs (i.e., intelligibility, comprehensibility, accentedness, and acceptability). EGA scores were collected…

Although Japan spends vast amount of money every year on English education and Japanese university students study and are exposed to oral English for several years, there still persists a hesitance to use and speak English. This paper looks at educational policy in Japan and the adoption of the native-speaker model in Japan. Although the…

This study examines the role of explicit instruction in article semantics to L2 learners of English. Two types of generic sentences, expressed by different articles, were tested over time. An instruction group (n = 21), a control group (n = 16) and a native English speaker control group (n = 9) participated in the study. The instruction group…

Research writing is an important part of doctoral study. Previous studies suggest that students who speak English as an additional language (EAL) may experience difficulties in writing a thesis in English. This study investigated the nature of the writing challenges experienced by EAL doctoral students. Drawing on data collected from individual…

Attending to the narrative of a teacher candidate regarding his practicum experience with heritage language learners (HLLs) and L1 Spanish learners, this hermeneutic phenomenological case study describes the identity struggles he encountered during the experience. Findings show that his struggles resulted not only from a perceived lack of…

In countries such as the United States and Canada, an increasing number of non-native English speaking graduate students work in the capacity of university teaching assistants. Over the past several decades, a number of communication challenges between non-native English speaking International Teaching Assistants (ITAs) and native English-speaking…

This paper reports on a longitudinal study that investigated how international students' personal network mediated their pragmatic choices during studying abroad in China. Data were collected over a year through different ways, including Study Abroad Network Questionnaire, role-plays, retrospective verbal reports, ethnographic interviews and…

In light of pedagogical innovation, this study reports a two-stage survey with 172 participants from English-major and non-English-major programs on their needs of production-oriented approach and perceptions of effective implementation strategies in business English courses at a Chinese university. The results of the study suggest that while the…

Prosody communicates pragmatic meaning far beyond that which is evident at the surface level of an utterance and can pose challenges to learners' pragmatic comprehension. The current study investigated how second language (L2) English learners made decisions about speaker intent when communicated through prosody. Seventeen English L2 learners took…

The present study investigates the effects of two subsequent learning contexts, formal instruction (FI) at home and a 3-month stay abroad (SA), on vocabulary acquisition in English as a foreign language (EFL) writing and speaking. Data were collected from 30 Catalan/Spanish learners of English before and after each learning period using a written…