This study aims to advance the understanding of sociolinguistic competence among near-native speakers and to further knowledge about the acquisition of variable structures. We conduct a quantitative analysis of variable future-time expression in informal conversations between near-native and native speakers of French. In addition to examining…

This study investigates whether re-thinking the separation of lexis and grammar in language testing could lead to more valid inferences about proficiency across modes. As argued by Römer, typical scoring rubrics ignore important information about proficiency encoded at the lexis-grammar interface, in particular how the co-selection of lexical and…

This study adopts Talmy's (1985, 1991, 2000) theory of linguistic typology and Slobin's (2003, 2004) hypothesis of Thinking-for-Speaking to investigate the use of additional expressions of Manner in the expression of Motion events by Chinese EFL learners in comparison with French EFL learners. The aim is to find out the Thinking-for-Speaking…