The acquisition of variation is a fundamental -- but poorly understood -- part of child language acquisition. We fully endorse Shin and Miller's call for us to recognize the importance of this core issue, and argue that our understanding could be further enriched by greater reliance on convergent methods. As such, we implore researchers to…

Based on findings from a variety of research, Shin and Miller (2022) propose a 4-step process that children go through as they learn sociolinguistic variation. Their proposal raises many interesting questions that should inspire future research. Here, I discuss their Step 1 -- the stage in which, according to their proposal, children produce only…

Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI) has been offering unprecedented opportunities for language education. However, its capacity to embrace linguistic diversity, particularly for learners of dialect-rich languages like Vietnamese and Mandarin, remains underexamined. Without careful consideration, GenAI risks reinforcing language hegemonies,…

Whether creativity can be taught or not has remained an unresolved and recurring topic of debate in creative writing. Writing that is creative and imaginative is distinguished from translation, which is more derivative. However, both activities are creative in their own unique ways. With the intent of fostering creativity in creative writing, I…

The internationalisation of Portuguese higher education implies multicultural challenges arising from the Portuguese language variation. Nevertheless, the perceptions of lecturers about their students are rarely analysed, though influencing learning. This will be the focus of our article, using focus groups. Findings show that lecturers experience…

This article examines the latest developments in the corpus language planning interventions in the implementation of the codification (Haugen, E. (1983). The implementation of corpus planning: theory and practice. In J. Cobarrubias & J. A. Fishman (Eds.), "Progress in language planning. International perspectives" (pp. 269-289).…

Despite the range of varieties of Han Chinese, Mandarin is the most widely studied variety in research on Chinese as a heritage language (CHL) around the world. To better understand the role of other varieties of Han Chinese in addition to Mandarin, this article presents a synthesis of research on the learning of Chinese varieties in formal and…

Adults are skilled at using language to construct/negotiate identity and to signal affiliation with others, but little is known about how these abilities develop in children. Clearly, children mirror statistical patterns in their local environment (e.g., Canadian children using "zed" instead of "zee"), but do they flexibly…

This article examines how writing studies scholarship has responded to changes in society's understanding of gender. Combining grounded theory and corpus linguistic analysis using a self-compiled corpus of journal issues published between 1970-2020, the authors track changes in the usage of gendered versus gender-neutral nouns and pronouns with…

This paper describes a mixed methods study of Japanese first-year tertiary learners' attitudes to English language learning models. It outlines the results from a survey comprised of a verbal guise test (measuring respondents' attitudes to both linguistic and personality features) and vocabulary elicitation, which was administered to 87…

This paper examines the language attitudes of first-wave members of the Ukrainian community in the UK towards the two varieties of Ukrainian present in the community (labelled Diasporic Ukrainian and Contemporary Ukrainian), and considers the language ideologies underpinning these attitudes. Drawing on the analysis of data obtained through…

Martha's Vineyard Sign Language (MVSL) is an extinct village sign language hypothesized to be a sister of British Sign Language (BSL) and a significant contributor to early American Sign Language (ASL) (Groce 1985). After the last deaf MVSL signer died, signs were elicited from five hearing signers. This study analyzes that data through a series…

In this article, we analyze how linguistic terms have been borrowed and reinterpreted across disciplines. Specifically, we describe how terminology associated with Applied Linguistics (AL) changed meaning as it entered the new disciplinary context of Writing Studies (WS), often resulting in confusion and turbulence between the two fields. As in…

The impact of text length on the estimation of lexical diversity has captured the attention of the scientific community for more than a century. Numerous indices have been proposed, and many studies have been conducted to evaluate them, but the problem remains. This methodological review provides a critical analysis not only of the most commonly…

I argue that the variation within and across contexts detailed by Shin & Miller is indicative of a broader phenomenon in which morphosyntax and the discourse context are intertwined, including elements like perspective, discourse relations, information structure, and common ground. Appealing to independent evidence highlighting the role of…