Statements containing quantity information are commonplace. Although there is literature explaining the way in which quantities themselves are conveyed in numbers or words (e.g., "many", "probably"), there is less on the effects of different types of quantity description on the processing of surrounding text. Given that…

Although lexical bundles (LBs) have attracted considerable attention in applied linguistics, their variation by discipline is an under-researched area, particularly with regard to Master's dissertations. This paper explores the frequency, structure, and function of four-word bundles used in Electrical and Electronic Engineering Master's…

Phrasal verbs are important for EFL and ESL education because of their high frequency, but can be difficult for learners because of their number and polysemy. While there are a number of studies on phrasal verbs, the widening focus of such studies has left a gap between theory and practical instruction. This study improves upon previous studies…

The purpose of the present study was to compare the effects of input flooding and input elaboration on the learning of non-congruent collocations by Iranian English as a foreign language (EFL) learners. The participants of the study included 60 EFL learners at the intermediate level of language proficiency who were divided into two equal groups.…

Based on Larsen-Freeman's (2001) three-dimensional (form-meaning-use) framework of grammar teaching, this study aimed to investigate which type of clause (noun, adjective or adverbial) was the most challenging for second/foreign language (L2) learners in writing skills. Depending on the results of a diagnostic test prepared in accordance with the…

Loosely attached to other syntactic elements in an utterance, pragmatic markers (PM) are one of the most frequented pragmatic elements that fulfill various functions. Among a great number of PMs encountered in daily conversations, I think is one of the most prevalent PMs in native speaker and non-native speaker discourse. Thus, the purpose of this…

This article focuses on the use of collocations in language learning research (LLR). Collocations, as units of formulaic language, are becoming prominent in our understanding of language learning and use; however, while the number of corpus-based LLR studies of collocations is growing, there is still a need for a deeper understanding of factors…

Underspecification and coercion are two prominent interpretive mechanisms to account for meaning variability beyond compositionality. While there is plentiful evidence that natural language meaning constitution exploits both mechanisms, it is an open issue whether a concrete phenomenon of meaning variability is an instance of underspecification or…

Computerized classification of student answers offers the possibility of instant feedback and improved learning. Open response (OR) questions provide greater insight into student thinking and understanding than more constrained multiple choice (MC) questions, but development of automated classifiers is more difficult, often requiring training a…

This essay describes the struggle to get one second grade reader who was in need of fluency practice to overcome his resistance to rereading familiar texts. This was done through the use of videos which were sent to parents on a weekly basis after the texts had been practiced several time with an eye toward all aspects of fluency--phrasing,…

This dissertation examines the interface between music and language in "Huju", which is a Shanghai dialect based regional opera. Chapter I is a short introduction. Chapter II presents a thorough review of the studies on linguistic tone and music tune, and provides descriptive background information about "Huju" and Shanghai…

This dissertation approaches the idea of lexical types such as word, clitic and affix from an oblique angle. Starting with Cardinaletti & Starke's (1999) diagnostics for the Weak Pronoun, I deconstruct the category of clitic, breaking it down into two binary qualities: the syntactic primitive of being linked to a head of a different basic…

This study aims at investigating the challenges that Yemeni translation students encounter when translating neologisms from English into Arabic. It also aims at comparing students' translation with outcomes of machine translation (MT). The authors follow the descriptive and comparative methods in conducting this study. To achieve the objective of…

Over the last few decades, it has become obligatory to publish academic research to survive in the academic world. In academic writing skill, lexical bundles (LBs) usage is marked as a master ability to build well-organized paragraphs or essays and are essential instruments to sound more natural and be fluent in English. The current study aimed to…

The study aims to investigate whether second language learners perform sentence processing based on syntactic or structure-based parsing strategies during real-time comprehension of constructions with syntactic ambiguities. To this end, the recordings of eye movements from Turkish learners of English and native English speakers as a control group…