Applied Linguistics - Advance Access

'Tails' of Linguistic Survival

Timmis, I. — 2009-06-30

Given the relatively short history of computerized corpora of spoken language, it is not surprising that few diachronic studies have been done on the grammatical features recently highlighted by the analysis of such corpora. This article, however, does take a diachronic perspective on one such feature: the syntactic feature of ‘tails’ (Dik 1978). The use of tails is analyzed in terms of form, frequency, and function in a 50,000 word corpus of informal conversations which took place in the North of England between 1937 and 1940. This analysis shows that tails were a systematic and quite frequent feature of spoken English at that time. It also shows that there are marked similarities in terms of form and function between tails in this small corpus and those in more widely based contemporary corpora. The article argues that the durability of tails may lie in the fact that the feature has both an important psycholinguistic function and important affective functions and concludes that this kind of diachronic research is of great potential value for spoken language research.

An Extended Positioning Analysis of a Pre-Service Teacher's Better Life Small Story

Barkhuizen, G. — 2009-06-29

The analysis of narrative data in applied linguistics has focused to varying degrees on their content, form, and context, with content and thematic analyses being the focus in much of the narrative research in language learning and teaching (Pavlenko 2007). The aim of this article is to report on a positioning analysis of a small story about the imagined ‘better life’ of a migrant, pre-service teacher. Positioning analysis operates on three levels, which together require the analyst to examine the content and characters in the story, the interactive performance of the story, and the positions that are agentively taken by the narrator vis-à-vis normative discourses. Positioning analysis thus considers content, form, and context. I propose and demonstrate an extended version of this approach which enables inclusion of data beyond the small story. The analysis reveals how the teacher interactively constructs an answer to the question ‘Who am I?’ in her story.

Discourse Particles in Corpus Data and Textbooks: The Case of Well

Lam, P. W. Y. — 2009-06-18

Discourse particles are ubiquitous in spoken discourse. Yet despite their pervasiveness very few studies attempt to look at their use in the pedagogical setting. Drawing on data from an intercultural corpus of speech and a textbook database, the present study compares the use of discourse particles by expert users of English in Hong Kong with their descriptions and presentations in textbooks designed for learners of English in the same community. Specifically, it investigates the similarities and differences in the use of the discourse particle well between the two datasets in terms of its frequency of occurrence, its positional preference and its discourse function. Results from the analysis show that there are vast differences as regards how the particle well is used in real-world examples and how its use is described and presented in teaching materials. This raises the question to what extent foreign language learners who have minimal exposure to naturally-occurring spoken interactions in English could effectively master the use of discourse particles if they solely rely on these textbooks.

Probabilities and surprises: A realist approach to identifying linguistic and social patterns, with reference to an oral history corpus

Sealey, A. — 2009-06-18

The relationship between language and identity has been explored in a number of ways in applied linguistics, and this article focuses on a particular aspect of it: self-representation in the oral history interview. People from a wide range of backgrounds, currently resident in one large city in England, were asked to reflect on their lives as part of a project to celebrate the millennium, resulting in a corpus of 144 transcribed interviews. The article considers the utility of realist social theory and complexity theory in the analysis of patterns—and deviations from those patterns—in both the linguistic features of these interviews and the social categories to which people are routinely ascribed. Corpus linguistic software was used to identify discourse features of the corpus as a whole, and to compare and contrast features produced by different speakers with reference to the conventional social categories used in quantitative research. These categories, with their homogenizing limitations, are challenged with reference to complex causation. The article uses the category of gender to exemplify the multi-method approach advocated.

Lexical Diversity in Writing and Speaking Task Performances

Yu, G. — 2009-06-04

In the rating scales of major international language tests, as well as in automated evaluation systems (e.g. e-rater), a positive relationship is often claimed between lexical diversity, holistic quality of written or spoken discourses, and language proficiency of candidates. This article reports a posteriori validation study that analysed a sample of the archived data of an international language test to examine empirically to what extent such relationships exist. It is also noted that previous studies on lexical diversity in the field of applied linguistics have focused exclusively on either written or spoken discourses, no study to date has compared lexical diversity of spoken and written discourses produced by the same participants. Therefore, the second aim of this article is to understand the differences in lexical diversity between writing and speaking task performances, and to what extent the topics of the writing prompts may affect lexical diversity of written discourses. Using D as a measure of lexical diversity (Malvern and Richards 1997, 2002; Malvern et al. 2004), it was found that D had a statistically significant and positive correlation with the overall quality ratings of both writing and speaking performances as well as the candidates’ general language proficiency. Nevertheless, the significant relationships were not borne out across the subgroups of the sample in terms of gender, first language background, purpose of taking the test and topics of the writing prompts. The different writing topics also had significant effects on lexical diversity—especially the topics that candidates were highly familiar with—even after controlling for writing ability and overall language proficiency. The lexical diversity of candidates’ writing and speaking performances were approximately at the same level; further, D was found to be a better predictor of speaking than writing performance. The implications of these findings are discussed with specific reference to the use of lexical diversity measures to inform language test validation and the development of lexical diversity parameters in automated evaluation systems.

Sex/Gender, Language and the New Biologism

Cameron, D. — 2009-05-31

In recent years there has been a striking shift in both academic and popular discourse on the subject of male–female differences. It is increasingly common for biological explanations to be proposed for differences that had previously been treated by most investigators as effects of socio-cultural factors. This article critically examines the arguments as they apply to the specific case of male–female differences in linguistic behaviour. It concludes that the relevant linguistic research evidence does not on balance support the new biologism; that evidence is more adequately accounted for using the socio-cultural approaches which most linguistic researchers favour.

The Contribution of Written Corrective Feedback to Language Development: A Ten Month Investigation

Bitchener, J., Knoch, U. — 2009-05-20

The call for longitudinal evidence on the efficacy of written corrective feedback (WCF) for ESL (English as a second language) writers has been made repeatedly since Truscott (1996) claimed that it is ineffective, harmful, and should therefore be abandoned. This article discusses some of the theoretical issues raised against the practice, outlines the status of recent empirical evidence and presents a 10-month study of the effects of WCF on two functional uses of the English article system given to 52 low-intermediate ESL students in Auckland, New Zealand. Assigned to four groups (direct corrective feedback, written, and oral meta-linguistic explanation; direct corrective feedback and written meta-linguistic explanation; direct corrective feedback only; the control group), the students produced five pieces of writing (pre-test, immediate post-test, and three delayed post-tests). Each of the treatment groups outperformed the control group on all post-tests and no difference in effectiveness was found between the three treatment groups.

A Subject-Object Asymmetry in the Comprehension of wh-Questions by Korean Learners of English

Lee, J.-H. — 2009-05-09

Previous studies on English as a second language (L2) argue for the relative ease of object wh-questions based on the finding that L2 learners are more accurate and faster in judging the grammaticality of object wh-questions than that of subject wh-questions in English. This article re-examines this claim by investigating L2 learners’ comprehension of long-distance wh-questions at different stages of English acquisition. A total of 113 Korean-speaking learners of English with different years of English instruction participated in a picture-based comprehension task. Contrary to previous studies, the results of the present study point toward a strong preference for subject wh-questions to object wh-questions. The learners were more accurate and improved faster in subject wh-questions than in object wh-questions. In addition, they showed a strong tendency to interpret object wh-questions as subject wh-questions. These results are in line with distance-based accounts of processing complexity. Subject wh-questions are easier to process because the distance between the wh-word and the gap is shorter and therefore poses less burden on working memory in subject wh-questions than in object wh-questions.

English in Advertising: Generic Intertextuality in a Globalizing Media Environment

Kuppens, A. H. — 2009-04-29

Across the globe, the use of English is a popular advertising technique. The ever expanding body of studies on this topic has revealed a number of explanations for the use of English in the advertising. It can be related to the larger marketing strategy of a campaign, to the cultural connotations English carries, or English can be used for creative-linguistic reasons. The current article, however, will present an analysis of four examples of advertisements in which English is used for reasons that have not been discussed in the scholarly literature so far. More specifically, in these advertisements, which intertextually refer to a range of British and American media genres, specific registers of English are used to mark the generic intertextuality of the ads. The analysis, I believe, sheds new light on the use of English in the media, and more particularly on issues such as viewers’ agency and linguistic superiority.

Seizure, Fit or Attack? The Use of Diagnostic Labels by Patients with Epileptic or Non-epileptic Seizures

Plug, L., Sharrack, B., Reuber, M. — 2009-04-17

We present an analysis of the use of diagnostic labels such as seizure, attack, fit, and blackout by patients who experience seizures. While previous research on patients’ preferences for diagnostic terminology has relied on questionnaires, we assess patients’ own preferences and their responses to a doctor's use of different labels through the qualitative and quantitative analysis of doctor–patient interactions in a realistic clinical setting. We also examine whether two sub-groups of patients—those with epileptic seizures and those with (psychogenic) non-epileptic seizures—show different behaviours in this respect. Our findings suggest first that patients make fine lexical distinctions between the various diagnostic labels they use to describe their seizure experiences; secondly, that patients play an active role in the development and application of labels for their medical complaint; and thirdly, that attention to patients’ lexical choices and interactive use or avoidance of labels can be relevant for the differential diagnosis of seizures.

The Relationship between Applied Linguistic Research and Language Policy for Bilingual Education

Johnson, D. C. — 2009-04-09

Currently, restrictive-language policies seem to threaten bilingual education throughout the USA. Anti-bilingual education initiatives have passed easily in California, Arizona, and Massachusetts; while one was closely defeated in Colorado, and federal education policy has re-invigorated the focus on English education for English language learners, while concomitantly obfuscating the possibility of native language maintenance and developmental bilingual education. This is the educational landscape within which bilingual education researchers, educators, and students must face the formidable challenge of preserving educational choice and bilingual education. Thus, substantive research is needed on how bilingual educators navigate this challenging ideological and policy landscape. Based on an ethnographic study of bilingual education language policy, this article takes up this challenge by focusing on how beliefs about Applied Linguistics research influence the interpretation and appropriation of federal language policy in one US school district. The results have implications for the relationship between the Applied Linguistic research community and language policy processes.

The Lexical Coverage of Movies

Webb, S., Rodgers, M. P. H. — 2009-03-26

The scripts of 318 movies were analyzed in this study to determine the vocabulary size necessary to understand 95% and 98% of the words in movies. The movies consisted of 2,841,887 running words and had a total running time of 601 hours and 33 minutes. The movies were classified as either American or British, and then put into the following genres: action, animation, comedy, suspense/crime, drama, horror, romance, science fiction, war, western, and classic. The results showed that knowledge of the most frequent 3,000 word families plus proper nouns and marginal words provided 95.76% coverage, and knowledge of the most frequent 6,000 word families plus proper nouns and marginal words provided 98.15% coverage of movies. Both American and British movies reached 95% coverage at the 3,000 word level. However, American movies reached 98% coverage at the 6,000 word level while British movies reached 98% coverage at the 7,000 word level. The vocabulary size necessary to reach 95% coverage of the different genres ranged from 3,000 to 4,000 word families plus proper nouns and marginal words, and 5,000 to 10,000 word families plus proper nouns and marginal words to reach 98% coverage. The implications for teaching and learning with movies are discussed in detail.

The Three Circles Redux: A Market-Theoretic Perspective on World Englishes

Park, J. S.-Y., Wee, L. — 2009-03-25

While Kachru's Three Circles model of World Englishes (Kachru 1985, 1986; Kachru and Nelson 1996) has been highly influential in highlighting the changing distribution and functions of English, it has also been criticized for its inability to account for the heterogeneity and dynamics of English-using communities, and for perpetuating the very inequalities and dichotomies that it aims to combat. By combining Bourdieu's (1984, 1986, 1990) notion of linguistic markets with the insights of the model's critics, this article deconstructs the Three Circles model by reinterpreting it as a model for the system of ideological forces that delimit local creativity and utility of English in the world. Such a reinterpretation can be a useful way of explicating the performativity of English in different sociolinguistic communities around the world, foregrounding dominant assumptions about the prevailing structure of the global linguistic market.

English Language Teachers' Conceptions of Research

Borg, S. — 2009-03-24

This article examines the conceptions of research held by 505 teachers of English from 13 countries around the world. Questionnaire responses supplemented by follow-up written and interview data were analyzed to understand teachers’ views on what research is and how often they read and do it (and why or why not in each case). An understanding of these issues is central to the development of informed policies for promoting teacher research engagement, but relevant systematic evidence is lacking in the field of English language teaching (ELT). The study shows that the teachers held conceptions of research aligned with conventional scientific notions of inquiry. The teachers also reported moderate to low levels of reading and doing research, with a lack of time, knowledge, and access to material emerging as key factors which teachers felt limited their ability to be research-engaged. Teachers engaged in research reported being driven largely by practical and professional concerns rather than external drivers such as employers or promotion. Overall, the findings of this study point to a number of attitudinal, conceptual, procedural, and institutional barriers to teacher research engagement. Understanding these, it is argued here, is an essential part of the broader process of trying to address them and hence to make teacher research engagement a more feasible activity in ELT.

Style Shifts among Japanese Learners before and after Study Abroad in Japan: Becoming Active Social Agents in Japanese

Iwasaki, N. — 2008-12-09

Previous studies on L2 Japanese sojourners often reported that learners overuse the plain style or haphazardly mix the plain and polite styles upon return. These styles, which are often associated with formal or informal contexts, also index complex social and situational meanings, and native speakers are reported to shift their styles to create desired contexts. In order to better understand L2 development of the use of the plain and polite styles during study abroad, the current study examined the use of the polite/plain styles and style shifts among five English-speaking male students who studied in Japan for one academic year by comparing their performances both quantitatively and qualitatively in oral proficiency interviews before and after they studied abroad. Upon return, three predominantly used the polite style talking to the interviewer (their former teacher), while two primarily used the plain style. Though the quantitative analysis may lead one to conclude that these two students regressed in their pragmatic competence, the qualitative analysis revealed that all five learners gained some understanding of social meanings of the plain and polite styles and became more active social agents who make decisions to shift the styles.

Practices of other-initiated repair in the classrooms of children with specific speech and language difficulties

Radford, J. — 2008-12-06

Repair practices used by teachers who work with children with specific speech and language difficulties (SSLDs) have hitherto remained largely unexplored. Such classrooms therefore offer a new context for researching repairs and considering how they compare with non-SSLD interactions. Repair trajectories are of interest because they are dialogic sites where the child's meaning is being negotiated and, therefore, where adults might create opportunities for language learning. The interactions take place during activities, such as story writing, where teachers elicit children's ideas and orient to their lack of clarity. From a data set of 78 cases, four significant patterns of teacher repair initiation emerged. First, non-specific repair initiators (RIs), such as ‘say that again’, target any aspect of the prior turn and reveal the adult's lack of grasp of its content. Next, specific RIs (‘she has’) that are constructed with minimal components of the child's turn, pinpoint the location of the trouble but provide no new lexical information. In contrast, specific RIs that are constructed as ‘wh’ questions (‘down where’), target the nature of the trouble and elicit further information. Finally, offers of candidates (‘do you mean X’) do provide new models of lexis but do not elicit repetition from the child.

Textual Appropriation and Citing Behaviors of University Undergraduates

Shi, L. — 2008-12-04

This article explores the citing behaviors of 16 undergraduates in a North American university. After completing a research paper for their disciplinary courses, each participating student was interviewed to identify in his/her writing words and ideas borrowed from source texts and to explain why and how the relevant texts were appropriated with or without citations. Analysis of students’ writing and comments illustrates how they relied on source texts for various aspects of their essays, some of which they believed required citations while some of which did not. Results showed that they tried to strike a balance between the need to cite published authors to gain credit for the scholarly quality of their writing and the desire to establish their own voice by limiting the extent to which they cited other texts. Some students also reported how they chose between quoting and paraphrasing (though the latter sometimes contained direct copying) on the basis of their ability to rephrase other's words and their understanding of the different roles played by the two. The study indicates the degree to which citational acts are discursive markings of learning and knowledge construction.

Topic Negotiation in Peer Group Oral Assessment Situations: A Conversation Analytic Approach

Gan, Z., Davison, C., Hamp-Lyons, L. — 2008-11-18

This study examines the production of topical talk in peer collaborative negotiation in an interactive assessment innovation context. The ability to stay on topic, to move from topic to topic and to introduce new topics appropriately is at the core of communicative competence. Applying conversation analysis (CA), we describe and analyze how one group of secondary ESL students orient to and construct what they take to be relevant to the assessment task as interaction proceeds. We found that in the context of group oral discussion described in our study, in the course of turn-by-turn interaction which was characterized by intensive engagement and active participation between peer participants, this group of students were able to pursue, develop, and shift topics to, on the one hand, ensure the successful completion of the assigned task, and on the other, to display individual contributions. Topical transitions appeared to be the result of participants constantly monitoring the content of talk for relevance to the assessment task agenda. Such negotiation of topical talk among the participants indicates that peer group discussion as an oral assessment format has the potential to provide opportunities for students to demonstrate ‘real-life’ interactional abilities to relate to each other in spoken interaction.

Constructing another Language--Usage-Based Linguistics in Second Language Acquisition

Eskildsen, S. W. — 2008-11-11

The general aim of this article is to discuss the application of Usage-Based Linguistics (UBL) to an investigation of developmental issues in second language acquisition (SLA). Particularly, the aim is to discuss the relevance for SLA of the UBL suggestion that language learning is item-based, going from formulas via low-scope patterns to fully abstract constructions. This paper examines how well this suggested path of acquisition serves ‘as a default in guiding the investigation of the ways in which exemplars and their type and token frequencies determine the second language acquisition of structure’ (N. Ellis 2002: 170). As such, it builds on and further discusses the findings in Bardovi-Harlig (2002) and Eskildsen and Cadierno (2007). The empirical point of departure is longitudinal oral second language classroom interaction and the focal point is the use of can by one student in the class in question. The data reveal the formulas, here operationalized as recurring multiword expressions, to be situated in recurring usage events, suggesting the need for a fine-tuning of the UBL theory for the purposes of SLA research towards a more locally contextualized theory of language acquisition and use. The data also suggest that semi-fixed linguistic patterns, here operationalized as utterance schemas, deserve a prominent place in L2 developmental research.