Perceptual simulations are unconscious and automatic, whereas perceptual imagery is conscious and deliberate, but it is unclear how easily one can transfer perceptual information from unconscious to conscious awareness. We investigated whether it is possible to be aware of what one is mentally representing; that is, whether it is possible to…

Language policy is a mechanism determining the uses of language generally; here it examines the role of the English language in the emerging USA. Inspired by Spanish riches deriving from the "New World" during the sixteenth century, the first English people to settle permanently in North America hoped for similar riches. In North…

This study aims to find out the extent to which students attending the English Language Teaching Programme (ELT) at Ondokuz Mayis University are aware of the major spelling, vocabulary, and pronunciation differences between American and British English which constitute the most commonly used varieties of English. To this end, 42 randomly selected…

This study adopts the revised interpersonal model of metadiscourse to discover whether and to what extent Chinese authors employ a varying amount of Interactional Metadiscourse (IM) in the past decade in English abstracts of economics Research Articles (RAs). The data was drawn from a prestigious economics journal in China to compose a corpus of…

Genre analysis is today's dominant approach for textual analysis, especially in the ESP learning and teaching profession. Adopting this approach, the present study compares the Introduction chapters of MA theses in ELT (English Language Teaching) written by Thai students to those written by American university students based on the move-step…

The time frame for infants' acquisition of language constancy was probed, using the phonetic variation in a rarely heard accent (South African English) or a frequently heard accent (American English). A total of 156 Australian infants were tested. Six-month-olds looked longer to Australian English than less commonly heard South African accent, but…

Metalinguistic awareness is the ability to identify, reflect upon, and manipulate linguistic units. It plays a critical role in reading development. The present study investigated Chinese- and English-speaking preschoolers' metalinguistic awareness development and the role of cognitive and linguistic abilities in its development. Forty-two…

This research examines the emerging academic subculture of international students from East Asia in U.S. academics from the cultural hybridization perspective. In a knowledge-based economy, international education plays a pivotal role in the global educational environment. Advocacy of international student mobility is essential; international…

The pairing of telecollaboration and focused instruction can lead to measurable gains in second language learners' pragmatic competence (Belz & Vyatkina, 2005, 2008; Vyatkina & Belz, 2006). This article examines speech act production in telecollaborative exchange, focusing on the requesting behavior of American learners of German for…

Examining speech samples from 75 American university students learning 1 of 3 languages (Mandarin, Russian, and Spanish), this article reports on a study of second language (L2) learners' oral fluency development and its relationship with their gains in holistic proficiency ratings during a semester abroad. In study abroad research, there is a…

The development of corpus linguistics has laid theoretical foundation and provided technical support for breaking the bottleneck in traditional vocabulary instruction in China. Corpora allow access to authentic data and show frequency patterns of words and grammar construction. Such patterns can be used to improve language materials or to directly…

A concise but strong review of the literature on bilinguals' perception of "self" led to the question of whether bilinguals perceive themselves as different or the same people when they function in different languages. 183 participants (N = 183) randomly assigned to two half-groups took both the English and Persian versions of the Self…

This thesis argues that rhythmic well-formedness preferences contribute to conditioning morphosyntactic choices, providing evidence from patterns in language use that constraints on phonological constructs are at work in the assessment of competing morphosyntactic variants. The results of the thesis call into question a fundamental empirical…

The present article reports on the findings of a cross-sectional acoustic study of the production of the Spanish /e/-/ei/ contrast, as in "pena-peina" and "reno-reino," by native-English intermediate and advanced learners of Spanish. The acoustic parameter that distinguishes Spanish /e/ from /ei/ is formant change--/e/ is a…

This study investigates the perception of Jordanian EFL learners' (JEFL) pragmatic transfer of refusal strategies in terms of contextual and cultural factors. Data were collected using a discourse completion test (DCT) and a scaled-response questionnaire (SRQ) to elicit perception data from the participants. Data from the SRQ were analyzed based…