Applied Linguistics - recent issues

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

Gan, Z., Davison, C., Hamp-Lyons, L. — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 07:31:26 PDT

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. — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 07:31:26 PDT

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.

English Language Teachers' Conceptions of Research

Borg, S. — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 07:31:26 PDT

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.

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

Park, J. S.-Y., Wee, L. — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 07:31:26 PDT

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.

The Lexical Coverage of Movies

Webb, S., Rodgers, M. P. H. — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 07:31:26 PDT

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.

A Critical Stance in Language Education: A Reply to Alan Waters

Simpson, J. — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 07:31:26 PDT

In his recent Forum article on ideology in applied linguistics, Alan Waters (2009) takes up arms against what he perceives as a damaging critical tendency. Ideas about language teaching, he claims, are promoted (e.g. learner centredness) or proscribed (e.g. artificial texts) ‘on the basis of ideological belief rather than pedagogical value’. By making this distinction, Waters fails to recognize that the relationship between ideology and pedagogy is inextricable: ideologies are constructed, reproduced, and made manifest in social practices, such as language teaching. Furthermore, in certain language learning and teaching situations, an uncritical stance—one which views language teaching as a neutral and value-free activity—is incompatible with students’ language learning and broader life concerns. In this response article, I maintain that in such contexts, the field of applied linguistics has an obligation to mediate in a way that is both critical and pedagogically relevant.

A G-Theory Analysis of Rater Effect in ESL Speaking Assessment

Kim, Y.-H. — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 07:31:26 PDT

The current status of English as an international language has come with challenges to the native speaker norms and raised the relevance of localized varieties in language assessment. This preliminary study investigates whether native English-speaking (NS) and non-native English-speaking (NNS) raters differ in their effect on score reliability in ESL speaking assessment. A generalizability theory analysis indicated that, although NS and NNS raters exhibited similar severity patterns across all students, they interacted with the students in different ways. This article also discusses the implications for assessment practice and directions for future research.

Mike Levy and Glenn Stockwell: Call Dimensions: Options and Issues in Computer-Assisted Language Learning. * Philip Hubbard and Mike Levy (eds): Teacher Education in Call.

Murray, D. — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 07:31:26 PDT

P. Li, L. Tan, E. Bates and P. Tzeng (eds): The Handbook of East Asian Psycholinguistics: Volume 1: Chinese.

Mishra, R. — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 07:31:26 PDT

Geoff Thompson and Susan Hunston (eds): System and Corpus: Exploring Connections.

Gardner, S. — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 07:31:26 PDT

Francesca Bargiela-Chiappini, Catherine Nickerson, and Brigitte Planken: Business Discourse. * Belinda Crawford Camiciottoli: The Language of Business Studies Lectures: A Corpus-Assisted Analysis.

Jacobs, G. — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 07:31:26 PDT

Notes on Contributors

Mon, 21 Sep 2009 07:31:26 PDT

Editorial: On a Change of Editor

Zuengler, J., Cook, G. — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 06:57:26 PDT

Modelling the Role of Inter-Cultural Contact in the Motivation of Learning English as a Foreign Language

Csizer, K., Kormos, J. — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 06:57:26 PDT

The research reported in this paper explores the effect of direct and indirect cross-cultural contact on Hungarian school children's attitudes and motivated behaviour by means of structural equation modelling. Our data are based on a national representative survey of 1,777 13/14-year-old learners of English and German in Hungary; 237 of the students learning English with the highest level of inter-cultural contact were selected for analysis. Our model indicates that for our participants, motivated behaviour is determined not only by language-related attitudes but also by the views the students hold about the perceived importance of contact with foreigners. The results of our study also reveal that the perceived importance of contact was not related to students’ direct contact experiences with target language speakers but was influenced by the students’ milieu and indirect contact. Among the contact variables, it was only contact through media products that had an important position in our model, whereas direct contact with L2 speakers played an insignificant role in affecting motivated behaviour and attitudes.

Practices for Social Interaction in the Language-Learning Classroom: Disengagements from Dyadic Task Interaction

Hellermann, J., Cole, E. — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 06:57:26 PDT

Using conversation analysis and situated learning theory, in this paper we analyze the peer dyadic interactions of one adult learner of English in class periods 16 months apart. The analyses in the paper present microgenetic and longitudinal perspectives on the learner's increasing participation in his classroom communities of practice. The focus of the analyses is on the language practices for a social action that is not taught explicitly by the instructors—disengaging from teacher-assigned dyadic task interactions. The tasks from which the learner disengages are serial dyadic interaction tasks. In these tasks, a learner engages with a number of different classmates doing the same task consecutively. The serial dyadic interaction task design is shown to offer students ongoing opportunities to develop interactional routines for social actions and language practices needed to accomplish habitual actions such as opening and disengaging from their dyadic task interactions.

Adult Learners' Perceptions of the Incorporation of their L1 in Foreign Language Teaching and Learning

Brooks-Lewis, K. A. — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 06:57:26 PDT

This article challenges the theory and practice of the exclusion of the adult learner's first language (L1) by reporting learners’ overwhelmingly positive perceptions of its incorporation in foreign language teaching and learning. Classroom-based research was undertaken with university students in an English as a foreign language course which included and incorporated the L1. Upon completion of the course the learner-participants were asked for their perceptions of the experience in written form, this being the data collected. Results of the research demonstrate learners’ positive response to the experience in their expressions of how and why they considered that the inclusion of the L1 had been beneficial to their foreign language learning experience. While the focuses of the research were literate Spanish-speaking adults in Mexico and English as the target language, the views of learner-participants expressed in the data concerning the inclusion and incorporation of the L1 in the foreign language learning experience suggest that the practice would be applicable in EFL teaching situations with learners of different backgrounds and/or with different L1s, and in the teaching of other target languages.

Uncovering the Extent of the Phraseological Tendency: Towards a Systematic Analysis of Concgrams

Cheng, W., Greaves, C., Sinclair, J. McH., Warren, M. — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 06:57:26 PDT

This paper offers an analytical procedure for identifying phraseological variation within ‘concgrams’ (Cheng et al. 2006), which are sets of words that co-occur regardless of constituency variation (e.g. AB and A * B), positional variation (e.g. AB and BA), or both. It argues that examining concgrams takes us closer to more fully appreciating and understanding the idiom principle (Sinclair 1987) which underpins the claim that phraseology is at the heart of all language use. Central to a description of phraseology is the identification of ‘meaning-shift units’ (MSU) (Sinclair 2007a, 2007b) and the analytical procedure for concgrams described in this paper can lead to their identification. In this paper, the concordance lines of a two-word concgram, PLAY/ROLE, are analysed to identify all of the possible concgram configurations and their frequencies of occurrence. Based on frequency, the canonical form is identified and its meaning described. The canonical form then serves as the benchmark against which all of the other concgram configurations are compared, resulting in a ranking of the concgram configurations relative to their adherence to the canonical form. At the end of the process, a meaning-shift unit is identified and described with all of its potential variations; in other words, a paraphrasable family with a canonical form and patterns of co-selection. Lastly, this paper proposes initial theoretical statements to account for key phraseological patterns so far observed, and explores the implications of a shift in emphasis towards descriptions of phraseological variations for the field of applied linguistics.

Age and Proficiency in L2 Attrition: Data from Two Siblings

Tomiyama, M. — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 06:57:26 PDT

This paper investigates whether any difference exists in the degree of second language attrition between two siblings in terms of grammatical complexity, grammatical accuracy, lexical complexity, and lexical productivity based on their storytelling data collected over the period of 31 months. The subjects’ L1 and L2 are Japanese and English, respectively. The siblings (one male, one female) have similar L2 profiles with respect to attained proficiency, including literacy, but differ in age. The ages of returning home were 7;0, an age reported to be more vulnerable to attrition and 10;0, an age reported to be more resistant. The siblings showed similar attrition patterns suggesting that an attained high proficiency level including the acquisition of literacy skills is an important factor in the maintenance of L2. One exception was grammatical accuracy, but the difference surfaced only after the second year, indicating that the period of disuse was differentially affected according to their ages. The younger sibling's data also suggest that maturational factors may play a role in successfully handling grammatical complexity and accuracy simultaneously.

Semantically Redundant Language--A Case Study

Rizza, C. — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 06:57:26 PDT

In this article, I discuss the concept of semantically redundant language through a case study of the Te Rauparaha Maori haka. I suggest that current linguistic theories cannot give a full account of ritualized speech events, of which the haka is an example, as these theories are based on a traditional dyadic model of interaction involving a specific addresser and addressee. I describe the speech event from the perspective of Speech Act Theory and show how the existence of the locution, illocution, and perlocution of an utterance in certain social contexts becomes unclear. In ritualized speech events, non-verbal elements of communication are more important than linguistic meaning. Linguistic meaning is downgraded in terms of value, in that what is said and the words of the utterance are less important than the fact that they have been uttered and the manner in which they have been delivered. I call this kind of language ‘semantically redundant language’ and suggest that there are varying degrees of this dependent on the social context within which an utterance is performed. Thus, semantic redundancy is greater in highly formalized, ritual scenarios, and less obvious in ‘normal’ dyadic interaction.

Hanneke Bot: Dialogue Interpreting in Mental Health.

Inghilleri, M. — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 06:57:26 PDT

Witold Tulasiewicz and Anthony Adams (eds): Teaching the Mother Tongue in a Multilingual Europe.

Yagmur, K. — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 06:57:26 PDT

David Hanauer: Scientific Discourse: Multiliteracy in the Classroom.

Bock, Z. — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 06:57:26 PDT

Alastair Pennycook: Global Englishes and Transcultural Flows.

Blackledge, A. — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 06:57:26 PDT

Notes on Contributors

Fri, 19 Jun 2009 06:57:26 PDT

Readers During 2007/2008

Fri, 19 Jun 2009 06:57:26 PDT

The Effects of Input-Based Tasks on the Development of Learners' Pragmatic Proficiency

Takimoto, M. — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 08:53:24 PDT

The present study evaluates the relative effectiveness of three types of input-based approaches for teaching English polite request forms to sixty Japanese learners of English: (a) structured input tasks with explicit information; (b) problem-solving tasks; and (c) structured input tasks without explicit information. Treatment group performance was compared with control group performance on pre-tests, post-tests, and follow-up tests consisting of a discourse completion test, a role-play test, a listening test, and an acceptability judgement test. The results revealed that the three treatment groups performed significantly better than the control group. However, the group that received the structured input tasks with explicit information did not maintain the positive effects of the treatment between the post-test and follow-up test on the listening test component.

Soliciting Teacher Attention in an L2 Classroom: Affect Displays, Classroom Artefacts, and Embodied Action

Cekaite, A. — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 08:53:24 PDT

This paper explores L2 novices’ ways of soliciting teacher attention, more specifically, their summonses. The data are based on detailed analyses of video recordings in a Swedish language immersion classroom. The analyses illuminate the lexical shape of summonses in conjunction with prosody, body posture, gestures, and classroom artefacts. As demonstrated, a simple structure of summoning provided a handy method for soliciting and establishing the teacher's attention, and facilitated the novices’ participation in classroom activities from early on. Importantly, however, the local design of the summonses was influenced by the competitive multiparty classroom setting. The analyses illustrate how the novices upgraded their summonses by displaying a range of affective stances. Different aspects of the students’ embodied actions were employed as ways of indexing affective stances, for example ‘tired’, ‘resigned’, or ‘playful’, that in the local educational order created methods that invited the teacher's attention and conversational uptake. These locally available resources allowed children to upgrade their summonses and to indicate their communicative projects, in spite of their limited Swedish (L2) resources. The findings are discussed in terms of their implications for understanding participation in L2 classroom interactions as being a matter of delicately calibrated collaborative accomplishments.

'Lego my keego!': An Analysis of Language Play in a Beginning Japanese as a Foreign Language Classroom

Bushnell, C. — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 08:53:25 PDT

In this article, I present an analysis of talk-in-interaction from an introductory Japanese as a foreign language classroom at an American university. An examination of the data revealed language play (LP) to be a highly salient feature of the participants’ interactions. LP has come into increasing focus in the second language acquisition research of the last decade. Research in L1 has long shown the prevalence of LP in both the language data available to the learner and learner language production (e.g. Garvey 1984, [1977] 1990), and recent research in L2 has shown that LP is also a prominent characteristic of the language production of both child and adult L2 learners (Kramsch and Sullivan 1996; Cook 1997, 2000, 2001; Lantolf 1997; Sullivan 2000; Tarone 2000; Broner and Tarone 2001; Belz 2002a, 2002b; Bell 2005; Cekaite and Aronsson 2005; Kim and Kellog 2007). Adopting Cook's (2000) definition of LP, I use conversation analysis to examine instances of LP in the participants’ interactions. Analysis focuses specifically on the ways in which LP functions within the context of the language learning classroom to provide ‘affordances’ (van Lier 2000, 2004) for language learning, and to become a resource for sequence-organization. The analysis shows that by and through the fictional world of LP, the participants were able to engage in the teacher-assigned pedagogical activities on their own terms. In the discussion, I argue that LP is potentially of great benefit to the linguistic development of second language learners—echoing Cekaite and Aronsson's argument in favor of a ludic model of language learning, in which they contend that ‘we need to take non-serious language more seriously’ (2005: 169).

A Novel Approach to Creating Disambiguated Multilingual Dictionaries

Boguslavsky, I., Cardenosa, J., Gallardo, C. — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 08:53:25 PDT

Multilingual lexicons are needed in various applications, such as cross-lingual information retrieval, machine translation, and some others. Often, these applications suffer from the ambiguity of dictionary items, especially when an intermediate natural language is involved in the process of the dictionary construction, since this language adds its ambiguity to the ambiguity of working languages. This paper aims to propose a new method for producing multilingual dictionaries without the risk of introducing additional ambiguity. As a disambiguated intermediate language we use the so-called Universal Words. A set of more than 200,000 unambiguous Universal Words have been constructed automatically on the basis of the well-known English lexical database WordNet. This approach is being used for the construction of a five language-dictionary in the field of cultural heritage within the framework of the PATRILEX project sponsored by the Spanish Research Council.

Interpreting Inexplicit Language during Courtroom Examination

Lee, J. — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 08:53:25 PDT

Court interpreters are required to provide accurate renditions of witnesses’ utterances during courtroom examinations, but the accuracy of interpreting may be compromised for a number of reasons, among which is the effect on interpretation of the limited contextual information available to court interpreters. Based on the analysis of the discourse of Korean–English interpreting in Australian courtrooms, this article examines how inexplicit language used by Korean-speaking witnesses affects the accuracy of court interpreting. Such use of inexplicit language is a consequence of differences between the lexico-grammatical system of the witnesses’ language (Korean) and that of the court (English), as well as being due to the witnesses’ lack of familiarity with the courtroom discourse. This study demonstrates that the way the court interpreters cope with inexplicit language may result in inaccurate rendition of the evidence, and thus have legal implications for court proceedings.

Memorial Article: John Sinclair (1933-2007): The Search for Units of Meaning: Sinclair on Empirical Semantics

Stubbs, M. — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 08:53:25 PDT

John McHardy Sinclair has made major contributions to applied linguistics in three related areas: language in education, discourse analysis, and corpus-assisted lexicography. This article discusses the far-reaching implications for language description of this third area. The corpus-assisted search methodology provides empirical evidence for an original and innovative model of phraseological units of meaning. This, in turn, provides new findings about the relation between word-forms, lemmas, grammar, and phraseology. The article gives examples of these points, places Sinclair's work briefly within a tradition of empirical text analysis, and identifies questions which are currently unanswered, but where productive lines of investigation are not difficult to see: (1) linguistic-descriptive (can we provide a comprehensive description of extended phrasal units for a given language?) and explanatory (what explains the high degree of syntagmatic organization in language in use?), and (2) socio-psychological (how can the description of phrasal units of meaning contribute to a theory of social action and to a theory of the ways in which we construe the social world?).

Ideology in Applied Linguistics for Language Teaching

Waters, A. — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 08:53:25 PDT

It is contended that much of present-day applied linguistics for language teaching (ALLT) fails to mediate effectively, primarily because an ideological construction, emanating from a critical theory perspective, is too often imposed on everyday pedagogical practices. This has resulted in an exaggerated level of concern about the power imbalances that language teaching involves, leading to the promotion of approaches which attempt to subvert teaching and the teacher role, irrespective of the pedagogical consequences, while simultaneously proscribing others, which, from a practitioner perspective, are widely regarded as axiomatic. Such a stance has taken root, it is also argued, because of insufficient critical questioning of its moral and intellectual underpinnings. As a remedy, more should be done by ALLT to appreciate the rationale for and build on existing pedagogical traditions.

Nikolas Coupland: Style: Language Variation and Identity.

Hall, G. — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 08:53:25 PDT

Malcolm Coulthard and Alison Johnson: An Introduction to Forensic Linguistics: Language in Evidence.

Rock, F. — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 08:53:25 PDT

D. Block: Second Language Identities.

Ng, S. — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 08:53:25 PDT

Alastair McLauchlan: The Negative L2 Climate: Understanding Attrition Among Second Language Students.

Coleman, J. — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 08:53:25 PDT

Erratum

Tue, 10 Mar 2009 08:53:25 PDT

Notes on Contributors

Tue, 10 Mar 2009 08:53:25 PDT