Intelligent computer-assisted language learning (ICALL) is a multidisciplinary area of research that combines natural language processing (NLP), intelligent tutoring system (ITS), second language acquisition (SLA), and foreign language teaching and learning (FLTL). Intelligent tutoring systems (ITS) are able to provide a personalized approach to…

Word frequency is an important predictor of lexical-decision task performance. The current study further examined the role of this variable by exploring the influence of frequency trajectory. Frequency trajectory is measured by how often a word occurs in childhood relative to adulthood. Past research on the role of this variable in word…

Intergovernmental organizations (IOs) increasingly promote global citizenship education (GCE) and related topics. This paper analyses the body of scholarship on GCE that focuses on teachers and interprets the development of environment-related education (ERE) within the GCE discourse. Using a novel, data-rich methodology employing Natural Language…

Previous papers in these pages have dealt empirically with the child's first words, the child's first imitations, and the use of yes/no and wh-questions with infants. In this study, we touch on all these issues, but attempt to place them in a systemic-functional language framework and a cultural-historical learning one. First, we deal with some of…

Translation/interpretation has always been central to intercultural communication. Lack of knowledge of another culture may cause confusion, misunderstanding or even offense during communication process and it also makes the conclusion of international or bilateral agreements difficult or impossible. To the extent that without communication there…

We address two important questions about the relationship between theoretical linguistics and psycholinguistics. First, do grammatical theories and language processing models describe separate cognitive systems, or are they accounts of different aspects of the same system? We argue that most evidence is consistent with the one-system view. Second,…

This study examined whether the proposed bilingual advantage in inhibitory control and working memory can be extended to a trilingual advantage, and assessed any age-related effects on a continuum in young adults to older adults. Trilinguals, bilinguals and monolinguals' performance on the Simon task and a numerical version of the N-back task was…

Traxler, Pickering, and Clifton (1998) found that ambiguous sentences are read faster than their unambiguous counterparts. This so-called "ambiguity advantage" has presented a major challenge to classical theories of human sentence comprehension (parsing) because its most prominent explanation, in the form of the unrestricted race model…

Today, L.S. Vygotsky's concept of a 'zone of proximal development' (ZPD) is often used to just mean best practices in early years teaching, like scaffolding. But in his original theory, the zones linked age periods distinguished by age-specific neoformations -- one of which was the formation of concepts at adolescence. So Vygotsky rejected Stern's…

This article, taking the translation courses for English majors in Zhejiang University of Finance and Economics Dongfang College as an example, starts from the current teaching problems of translation courses in application-oriented colleges and universities. In order to clarify the teaching system, highlight the local characteristics, and find a…

Translanguaging is a new term in bilingual education; it supports a heteroglossic language ideology, which views bilingualism as valuable in its own right. Some translanguaging scholars have questioned the existence of discrete languages, further concluding that multilingualism does not exist. I argue that the political use of language names can…

Most theories of learning would predict a gradual acquisition and refinement of skills as learning progresses, and while some highlight exponential growth, this fails to explain why natural cognitive development typically progresses in stages. Models that do span multiple developmental stages typically have parameters to "switch" between…

Socioeconomic status (SES) has been shown to influence language skills, with children of lower SES backgrounds performing worse on language assessments compared to their higher SES peers. While there is abundant behavioral research on the effects of SES, whether there are differences in the neural mechanisms used to support language skill is less…

As artificially intelligent systems make their foray into the day-to-day educational experiences of students, we need to pay careful attention to the relationship between the system and the student. In this article, the authors discuss designing the personality of a virtual tutoring system called IBM Watson Tutor. The AI personality is key to the…

This review article presents evidence for the claim that frequency effects are pervasive in children's first language acquisition, and hence constitute a phenomenon that any successful account must explain. The article is organized around four key domains of research: children's acquisition of single words, inflectional morphology, simple…