Children are adept at learning their language's speech-sound categories, but just how these categories function in their developing lexicon has not been mapped out in detail. Here, we addressed whether, in a language-guided looking procedure, 2-year-olds would respond to a mispronunciation of the voicing of the initial consonant of a newly learned…

Since the 1990s, the emphasis on intelligibility as a goal in pronunciation teaching rather than near-native or nativelike competence has been reinforced by the increasing use of English as a lingua franca. The insight of the intelligibility principle has greatly impressed researchers in China's English education, but has "very limited and…

The present study draws on earlier research on learner-learner dyadic interactions in an e-tandem virtual exchange and examines negotiation of meaning episodes based on the qualitative data. These data come from learner-learner interactions during oral tasks carried out using a video conferencing tool. The aim is to unveil the interactional…

Nonnative English speakers are often judged based on their accent, but accent is perceived as well as produced. Race, gender, and religion interact to create complex and nuanced figures of personhood (Agha, 2005) impacting teachers' perceptions of students. Teachers' individual differences, including language proficiency, exposure to language, and…

The rapid transformation of English linguistic landscapes has introduced the world to newly emerging English varieties or World Englishes, which are not typically employed in the Inner Circle. To address the defying phenomenon, this qualitative study explored the perceptions of Thai university lecturers on World Englishes, Thai English and the…

The global prevalence of English as a lingua franca (ELF) across diverse linguacultural communities within the three circles invites an in-depth analysis of its phonological and lexicogrammatical features, especially among non-native English speakers. This qualitative study investigated these features among 30 Thai students from English and…

This study investigates the role of emotional linguistic input in learning novel words with abstract and concrete denotations. It is widely accepted that concrete words are processed more easily than abstract ones. Several theories of vocabulary acquisition additionally propose a critical role of sensorimotor and emotional information during novel…

Given that input-based language and literacy environments provide socioculturally-enriched contexts for bilingual and biliteracy acquisition, the current study aims to explore the contribution of early input in various sociocultural contexts to later biliteracy development among ­college-level Chinese heritage language (CHL) students. A group of…

Upon acquiring or learning another language, cross-linguistic influence (CLI) is an inevitable phenomenon with which a bilingual speaker lives. One key aspect of CLI is its bidirectionality, flowing between both the first (L1) and second languages (L2) mutually affecting each other. However, investigations of L1 CLI on L2 have dominated previous…

Although Turkey is a country where English is taught as an international language (EIL), very few research studies have focused specifically on learners' attitudes toward different accents and pronunciations. Therefore, this paper attempts to highlight Turkish university preparatory school students' perceptions on different English pronunciations…

Grammar varies in semantic, morphosyntactic, and phonological complexity, which may influence what type of Corrective Feedback (CF) is effective. The present study was designed to investigate the best form of CF for each grammatical feature, in conjunction with associated variables such as learner proficiency level and L1 influence. Fifteen…

The distinctive features of the Arabic language and orthography offer opportunities to investigate multiple word characteristics at the item level. The aim of this paper was to model differences in word reading at the item level among 3rd grade native Arabic-speaking children (n = 303) using cross-classified generalized random-effects (CCGRE)…

Noise disturbance has been recognised as a problem in schools, affecting the intelligibility of speech, and consequently, educational outcomes. Whilst research has explained various effects of noise on learning, less is known about specific learner populations' perceptions of the effects of noise on their learning. This article reports on a study…

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to investigate the psychophysical boundary used for categorization of voiced-voiceless stop consonants in native Japanese speakers. Method: Twelve native Japanese speakers participated in the experiment. The stimuli were synthetic stop consonant-vowel stimuli varying in voice onset time (VOT) with…

Dative alternation between prepositional and double object datives has been a popular topic in second language (L2) acquisition, but only few studies deal with discourse constraints such as the "given-before-new" principle, or given-new (GN) ordering, which describes the tendency to place given information before new information. The…