In addressing the widening research-practice gap in the field of second language (L2) education, an increasing emphasis has been placed on a bidirectional and mutually beneficial relationship between L2 researchers and practitioners. Through the lens of an ecosystems model, this qualitative study explored how seven researchers at a research center…

Although some critics consider it time-consuming and demanding, proponents of the monolingual approach for field research (i.e., learning to speak a target field language as part of the research process) argue that it can provide a unique insight into its structures. However, this claim remains largely unsubstantiated in the available literature…

Based on Jef Verschueren's Adaptation Theory, Lakoff's definition and Prince et al.'s classification of hedges, this paper takes New York Times and China Daily from January 23rd to April 8th, 2020 as corpus sources, randomly selects 39 COVID-19 reports, and makes a contrastive study of hedges among them, aiming at exploring the similarities and…

This review involved 60 articles chosen from 336 empirical studies identified in five leading journals on the learning and teaching of Chinese as a second or foreign language in mainland China during the period 2014-2018. The selected studies document Chinese researchers' efforts to improve the teaching and learning of the Chinese language in…

This paper discussed the relationship between language, ecology, and culture, and claimed that the study of linguistic communication as pragmatics should not be confined to the traditional context, but should focus on a broader ecological environment. It analyzed the context of practical communication from the perspective of language ecology…

Learners' self-initiated language learning with mobile technology occurring outside the classroom is often contextualized, heterogeneous, and idiosyncratic. In this study, we propose a time-series clustering methodology for researching informal mobile language learners' learning and development of another language, with a view to unravelling the…

The course Introduction to Linguistics aims at fostering students' rational understanding of human languages, fortifying students' linguistic and cultural awareness and critical thinking ability, and developing students' language research awareness and interest. The article analyzes the status quo of Introduction to Linguistics teaching in some…

Recently Professor Noam Chomsky--an outstanding scholar, linguist, the lifelong professor of MIT, USA, accepted the interview from the author and talked about a wide range of topics which involved academic research, education, innovation, building a first-rate university and some hot international issues. Importantly, Professor Chomsky gave his…

The current Language Policy and Planning (LPP) literature does not differentiate between LPP as practical planning and LPP as a research area. This lack of a conceptual distinction has led to difficulties in explaining the contradiction of the lethargic status of "LPP-research" and the vigorous reality of "LPP-practice." This…

With the largest number of English learners in the world, the influence of the English language teaching (ELT) reform in China cannot be underestimated. This article explores the implications of the actual use of English in China's workplace for ELT reform in the context of English as a lingua franca (ELF). On the basis of cross-validated data…

Documenting sociolinguistic variation in lesser-studied languages presents methodological challenges, but also offers important research opportunities. In this paper we examine three key methodological challenges commonly faced by researchers who are outsiders to the community. We then present practical solutions for successful variationist…

Extending new verbs is important in becoming a productive speaker of a language. Prior results show children have difficulty extending verbs when they have seen events with varied agents. This study further examines the impact of variability on verb learning and asks whether variability interacts with event complexity or differs by language.…

News is a kind of writing style, which is so valuable that many linguists choose it to study. This thesis aims to conduct a systemic analysis of modality type, value and orientation under the framework of Halliday's Systemic-functional Grammar in order to explore the interpersonal meanings of modality in English news discourse. The research data…

The decolonization of knowledge is increasingly high on the agenda of applied and sociolinguistics. This article contributes to this agenda by examining how peripheral multilingual scholars confront their linguistic and epistemic exclusion from global knowledge production. Based on the product of such a challenge -- a Chinese-centric special issue…

This study examines the "ba" and "bei" constructions in Mandarin using data from the Tong corpus, a new multimedia longitudinal child language corpus. A unified aspectual account of the two constructions is proposed: both require telic predicates, and should thus correlate with the perfective rather than imperfective aspect for…