Reinforcement of differences in educational systems and school curricula may be expected in Europe due to societal crises and transformations. Thus, it is likely that cultural "variants of a capitalist spirit" and different concepts of economic education will become evident in a corresponding curriculum analysis. In this study, we…

This article compares the use of discourse markers (DMs) in Italian as a second language (L2) produced by Belgian-Dutch learners, with the DMs produced by Italian native (L1) speakers. The quantitative analysis of the data shows that L1 speakers produce more DMs than L2 speakers, whereas the comparison between the levels of proficiency in L2…

The increasing use of English in higher education around the world has prompted a large amount of research into the causes, effects and perceptions of this phenomenon, particularly relating to the introduction of English-medium instruction. While most previous research has focussed on institutions that have effectively 'added' English to existing…

The choice of language for publishing is a topic of particular significance for scholars of languages other than English (LOTE) due to the importance of publishing in the professional language for maintaining expertise in the written academic register of the respective language. While the multilingual ability of such scholars means they can…

Prediction in language comprehension has become a key mechanism in recent psycholinguistic theory, with evidence from lexical prediction as a primary source. Less work has focused on whether comprehenders also make structural predictions above the lexical level. Previous research shows that processing is facilitated for syntactic structures which…

Since educators play a decisive role in the formation of language attitudes, this study analyses perceived competence, habits of language use and attitudes towards three languages in contact harboured by prospective teachers. Our research replicates a 20-year-old study and is comparative, as it parallels two European regions: the Basque Autonomous…

The present investigation focuses on first language (L1) and second language (L2) speakers' sensitivity to lexical fixedness and compositionality of Italian word combinations. Two studies explored language users' intuitions about three types of word combinations: free combinations, collocations, and idioms. In Study 1, Italian Verb+Noun…

Many scholars have highlighted the great variability of second language acquisition outcomes and, thus, the inconsistencies and inconclusiveness in the study abroad literature. These have called for longitudinal, case-based research that focuses on the students' processes (rather than outcomes) and that showcases the heterogeneity of…

Concordance-based Data-Driven Learning (DDL) aims to help second language learners infer language usage rules from language usage regularities. A number of DDL pedagogical treatments have focussed on phraseological units such as collocations, widely recognised as a central component of second language learning. This study evaluates DDL effects…

Different words generally have different meanings. However, some words seemingly share similar meanings. An example are null and overt pronouns in Italian, which both refer to an individual in the discourse. Is the interpretation and processing of a form affected by the existence of another form with a similar meaning? With a pupillary response…

This paper will present a translation project with second-year bachelor students together with some observational data. The students firstly translated an academic abstract from Italian (their first language) to English by using the language resources they were acquainted with. Then they translated a second abstract by using a pre-compiled offline…

There is scarce evidence of publications pertaining to the phenomenon that a foreign teachers' language in fact is a language for specific purposes. In the field of (foreign) languages for specific purposes, traditionally linked to a vast variety of professional and academic domains, it seems that LSP teachers' language has not yet gained due…

This paper aims to explore the reasons behind the limited dissemination of Adamczewski's Metaoperational approach to language beyond the French academic sphere. The theory, which developed in and by contrastivity between 1976 and 2005, is built on the basic assumption that utterances exhibit on their surface observable traces of the utterer's…

This paper illustrates the use of two language-teaching and learning methods (process drama and theatre) in a class of Italian. Process drama is based on improvisation, over-identification, and dramatisation from a short set of coordinates that students can read just a few minutes before the activity that will be later performed in class (see…

Academic globalisation and the internationalisation of scientific knowledge currently place higher education between two forces: global competitiveness and innovation on the one hand, local attractiveness and diversity on the other. In view of this double requirement, this paper aims to examine language policy and analyse its impact on language…