This paper presents an argument for how second language acquisition (SLA) research should be carried out if a researcher is genuinely interested in learner grammar (i.e., knowledge of language), its acquisition and use. SLA research has expanded greatly over many years and currently spans many subfields, but researchers share one main goal: to…

This paper consists of a short multimedia introduction to Lolak, a near-extinct Greater Central Philippine language traditionally spoken in three small communities on the island of Sulawesi in Indonesia. In addition to being one of the most underdocumented languages in the area, it is also spoken by one of the smallest native speaker populations…

Although classical statistical techniques have been a valuable tool in second language (L2) research, L2 research questions have started to grow beyond those techniques' capabilities, and indeed are often limited by them. Questions about how complex constructs relate to each other or to constituent subskills, about longitudinal development in…

This article aims to present detailed accounts of central approaches to Critical Discourse Analysis. It focuses on the work of three prominent scholars such as Fairclough's critical approach, Wodak's discourse-historical approach and Van Dijk's socio-cognitive approach. This study concludes that a combination of these three approaches can be…

This paper presents a story of applied linguistics from my personal vantage point as a multilingual scholar whose career began outside the centers of research and scholarship. The article explains the assumptions and practices characterizing the foundation of the discipline in modernist discourses, and delineates the changes resulting from…

This special issue aims to develop a research agenda that brings language to the centre of our inquiry and critique of neoliberalism. Based on empirical case studies from across diverse contexts in Europe, North America, and East Asia, contributors to this special issue address two issues: (1) What can be said about the nature of neoliberalism…

"In the twentieth century, we humans began to transform our surroundings, our societies, and even ourselves. Without really intending to, we have introduced changes so rapid and so massive that our species has become the equivalent of a new geological force. That is why many scholars have begun to argue that planet Earth has entered a new…

The articles in this thematic issue document studies of grassroots actions in promoting multilingualism across different sectors of society as well as in different social and professional domains. In doing so, the contributors raise issues of the relevance of the notion of community in the age of superdiversity and the researcher's…

This seminar took place on 19 April, 2013 at the Centre for Language and Communication, Faculty of Language and Education Studies, The Open University. The seminar was coordinated by Janet Maybin and Theresa Lillis and there were 28 participants, including four postgraduate students, from universities in Britain, Belgium and South Africa.

Second language acquisition researchers often face particular challenges when attempting to generalize study findings to the wider learner population. For example, language learners constitute a heterogeneous group, and it is not always clear how a study's findings may generalize to other individuals who may differ in terms of language background…

This article presents a framework for the elaboration of Foreign Language Teaching (FLT) grammar materials for adults based on the application to SLA of Skill Acquisition Theory (SAT). This theory is argued to compensate for the major drawbacks of FLT settings in comparison with second language contexts (lack of classroom learning time and limited…

Armenian as a separate language has been thought as an I-E Language, but what language/s are the closest to Armenian? We made an attempt to compare Armenian words with Ukrainian, Slavic and European Languages contrasting the stems to some Iranian Languages, like Tajik, Dari and Persian, to see how relative Armenian could be to them. Our main goal…

Good practice in primary research has evolved over many decades of research in applied linguistics to counter human fallibility and biases. Surprisingly, perhaps, synthesising such research in an entire field has only recently started to develop its own methodologies and recommendations. This paper outlines some of the issues involved, especially…

In mid-2012, the authors organized a two-week workshop in Papua New Guinea to provide training in basic techniques and technologies for language documentation, and to gain understanding of how these technologies might be improved in the future. An assessment of the workshop was conducted by Brooks with the central idea that the workshop's…

This paper presents a set of guidelines for reporting on five types of quantitative data issues: (1) Descriptive statistics, (2) Effect sizes and confidence intervals, (3) Instrument reliability, (4) Visual displays of data, and (5) Raw data. Our recommendations are derived mainly from various professional sources related to L2 research but…