This paper reports a study that investigated how first language (L1) reading comprehension, L1 low-level skills, working memory capacity, and reading anxiety are related to the accuracy of responses and completion time in a second language (L2) reading test. The data obtained from Hungarian secondary school learners of English showed that anxiety related to processing the L2 reading text, time pressure, and the response tasks as well as L1 reading comprehension scores and backward digit span were significant predictors of L2 reading scores. L1 low-level skills did not contribute significantly to L2 reading accuracy. Higher levels of reading-related anxiety were associated with slower reading, and L2 learners with concurrently lower levels of L1 and L2 reading ability needed more time to complete the reading test. These findings highlight that L2 reading tests should be flexibly timed so that everyone, including test takers with literacy-related difficulties such as dyslexia, can demonstrate their abilities.

We present a simulation study based on a cognitive architecture that unifies various early language acquisition phenomena in laboratory and naturalistic settings. The model adaptively learns procedures through trial-and-error using general-purpose operators, guided by learned contextual associations to optimise future performance. For laboratory-based studies, simulated preferential focusing explains the delayed behavioural onset of statistical learning and the possible age-related decrease in algebraic processing. These findings suggest a link to continuous, implicit learning rather than explicit strategy acquisition. Moreover, procedures are not static but can evolve over time, and multiple plausible procedures may emerge for a given task. Besides, the same model provides a proof-of-concept for word-level phonological learning from naturalistic infant-directed speech, demonstrating how age-related processing efficiency may influence learning trajectories implicated in typical and atypical early language development. Furthermore, the artile discusses the broader implications for modelling other aspects of real-world language acquisition.

This study investigates how children aged 4 to 12 years participate in /u/-fronting, a phonetically conditioned change in Ontario English in which the high back vowel /u/ is initially more fronted after coronal consonants than in other contexts. A picture naming task was used to elicit vowel tokens from children and their parents, and F1 and F2 measurements were extracted using FAVE. Children in all three age groups (4-6, 7-9, 10-12 years) were found to have significantly higher F2 values for /u/ (indicating more fronting) than adults in the non-coronal environment. This pattern does not appear to follow the predicted pattern of incrementation of sound change by older children. Instead, the findings may reflect overgeneralization of /u/-fronting, with young children extending the change to a new phonetic context during acquisition, or an earlier start to the incrementation of this variable in this population.

The aim of the study is to compare the use of two different particles that are used in Icelandic conversation: the native form ha and the English borrowing what. The research questions are as follows: (1) What are the similarities and differences between the two forms in terms of turn-position, sequential placement, prosody, and functions?, and (2) What can the comparison tell us about the borrowing of discourse particles from one language to another? The data consisted of 28 hours and 36 minutes of conversation. The methodology employed in the study is that of interactional linguistics. The study shows that although ha and what have some similarities in certain environments, there are certain differences between the two forms. What is more limited in use than ha, both in terms of functions and position within a turn.

Both gesture and talk are basic building blocks of face-to-face conversation. In this study, we address the temporal dynamics of hand gesture phases relative to places and types of turn transition. We annotated gesture features and measured temporal aspects of gesture related to speech in two languages, German and Swedish. We found variation in the temporal relationships of gesture types and alignment of gesture phases that relate to the management of turn-taking in conversation. Specifically, the frequency of different gesture phases accompanying the offset of speech differed depending on whether the same speaker held the floor or whether a new speaker took up a turn. In addition, we found that differences in temporal alignment of gesture phases can distinguish between the type of turn transition that is upcoming up to a second before the place of transition is reached. Our results emphasize the importance of the interaction of the verbal and the gestural modality to maintain the smooth flow of conversation.

The modal auxiliary form must plus perfect aspect (must have +V-en) has recently acquired the meaning of direct evidentiality in Multicultural London English, the new London dialect. Because the new meaning is a recent innovation we have a rare opportunity to witness its development at first hand, unlike earlier changes in the history of must. Our analysis supports the view that the classic definition of evidentiality in terms of information source is too narrow to explain the expression of evidentiality in spoken interaction, and that a broader definition in terms of epistemic authority is more appropriate. We argue that the direct evidential meaning is a coherent further step in the semantic changes undergone by must during its history. It represents a previously undocumented pathway in the grammaticalisation of evidentiality. It also supports the view that evidentiality is not a purely lexical phenomenon in English.

Although web-based data collection has become increasingly popular in (linguistic) research over the past years, many researchers are still cautious about collecting data via the internet. Thus, this study aims at comparing web-based and lab-based testing of linguistic manipulations that have resulted in robust findings in previous lab-based research on bilingual language processing. A total of 134 L1 German students of L2 English participated in two experiments in a web-based (n = 78) or lab-based setting (n = 56). The study examined potential language co-activation through cognates in an English Lexical Decision Task (Experiment 1) and the use of L2 lexical and syntactic information in English relative clause processing in a Self-paced Reading Task (Experiment 2). We found comparable evidence of lexical and syntactic processing in both groups in both experiments. Critically, this paper provides important methodological implications for web-based data collections with second language learners.

Children are known to derive more implicatures when the required alternative is made salient through contrast or when it is made contextually relevant through a story or a Question Under Discussion. We investigated the exclusivity implicature of three disjunctions (sau “or”, sau… sau, and fie…fie “either…or”) in child Romanian, an understudied language in the previous literature. Three experiments reveal that the mere presence of the stronger alternative, that is, simply hearing unrelated conjunctive statements in the course of the experiment, is not enough to boost implicatures. Rather, implicatures increase as a result of both access to alternatives and contextual relevance (expressed through conjunctive questions such as Did the hen push the train and the boat?). Interestingly, the boost in implicatures was observed only for sau-based disjunctions, not for fie…fie, which we conjecture may be due to children treating the latter as ambiguous between disjunction and conjunction.

This article discusses data from a Romance variety spoken in the linguistic region of France referred to as the Croissant. When roots in this language exhibit a phonologically problematic right edge, the problem is treated differently depending on whether the stem is nominal or verbal. We propose that this unequal treatment reflects an underlying distinction: seemingly unsuffixed verbs are in fact underlyingly suffixed, whereas nouns are truly unsuffixed. The final consonant of the verbal stem is therefore not final underlyingly. It is claimed that this solution is preferable to relying on distinct grammars for nouns and verbs or assuming transderivational relations between words. The article also clarifies the purview of Strict CV, the framework that it is couched in. Strict CV is a theory of representations that defines well- and ill-formed structures, some of which are universal. It needs to be complemented by a theory of computation.

Two experiments investigated the nature of the emotional differences between figurative language and literal counterparts. The semantic differential method was used with principal component analysis as a data-driven implicit method for distinguishing emotional variables. The first experiment found that metaphoric stories were reliably different in emotionality than their literal counterparts along three different data-defined dimensions. The second experiment extended the conclusions to the evaluation of individual words used figuratively (including simile and metaphor). In both studies, principal component analysis revealed three distinct underlying sources of variance implicit in the ratings of experimental items including the dimensions of dynamism and depth, as well as an evaluation scale in each case. Notably, all three implicit scales, though orthogonal to each other, were found to correlate with explicit judgments of emotional valence of the stories in Experiment 1. Data-derived implicit measures are an effective way of discriminating among affective dimensions in figurative linguistic stimuli.

English employs a variety of comparative formation strategies. Theoretical and corpus-based research has established that their distribution depends on a variety of factors. In this article, we take an experimental approach to test analytic, synthetic and double comparative forms in relation to register in American and British English. We report on a rating study investigating the appropriateness and interpretation in terms of evaluativity of the three comparative forms. Our findings confirm the hypothesis that the comparative variants are not considered equally appropriate, but the effect is not as strong as would be expected under the hypothesis that frequency of occurrence is directly related to linguistic judgments. The analytic and double comparative alternatives exhibit lower appropriateness levels than the synthetic comparative. Analytic and double comparative forms are rated as less appropriate in formal than in informal contexts, which did not show an effect on the synthetic form. Furthermore, the analytic variant shows a different behavior in terms of the interpretation than the other forms in that a stronger effect of evaluativity is detected. Limitations and future directions are discussed. Our study is the first to provide experimental evidence for certain hypotheses emerging from corpus-based research.

The experimentally backed and hitherto overlooked empirical observation of the paper is a contrast among indefinite Positive Polarity Items regarding their possibility of being rescued under certain operators with different rescuing potential. If/surprise/only/don’t think can rescue some-indefinites, suspending their anti-licensing (i.e., their impossibility to occur in the scope of a clausemate negation): while some-pronouns (in English and French) and des-indefinites in French exhibit the expected rescuability, English some-NPs remain unexpectedly degraded. Our account relies on the hypothesis that ‘rescuing’ is due to sentential negation being interpreted as ‘external’ (vs. nullified as in most literature). The definition we propose for external negation is syntactic: rescuing operators allow sentential negation to raise to an illocutionary functional projection above Tense Phrase (TP). Thus at LF (Logical Form), the negation takes that higher projection (rather than TP) as complement and becomes harmless for some-indefinites. The semantic correlate of this syntactic proposal is the interpretation of external negation as a propositional operator. As it involves the illocutionary periphery, rescuing is pragmatic in nature. The different rescuing potential between some-pronouns and some-NPs arises from the interplay between their distinct LF-representations and a minimal-event pragmatic constraint on rescuing.

Previous studies have indicated that young middle-class Japanese women’s stronger willingness to study English in the West can be attributed to Japan’s gender inequality and women’s longing for gender-equal Western societies. This literature-based study highlights an overlooked group of non-elite young Japanese women who make grassroots efforts to achieve upward mobility by studying English in Western English-speaking countries while participating in working holiday programs. Although socioeconomic and educational inequalities exist among international students, they are often invisible, particularly among the youth from developed countries such as Japan. This study provides new insights into the factors that influence unprivileged young Japanese women’s investment in studying English abroad. For example, women’s beliefs in the power of English skill development and overseas work experience are derived from the misconception dominant in Japan’s non-multilingual corporate world that anyone with self-acquired English skills can perform bilingual jobs, such as interpreting. This factor enables academic and commercial agents (e.g., women’s magazines and college prospectuses) to produce pro-women discourse that even non-elite young women can achieve career mobility by gaining English skills and overseas work experience. Implications are provided for international English education stakeholders positioned to emphasize global English promises while obscuring the reality of widening disparities. The gap between university-based elite researchers and non-elite research participants is also discussed as a challenge to the much-needed attempt to further examine the impact of global and localized English ideology on non-elite English learners’ grassroots efforts toward upward mobility.

With over 17 million children learning English, Bangladesh has one of the world’s largest English-learning populations. However, despite this, the country faces challenges in achieving the optimal level of English proficiency. English language teaching (ELT) initiatives in Bangladesh, which have evolved over time, can be broadly classified based on the Grammar-Translation Method, Communicative Language Teaching, and the English in Action project. These approaches predominantly reinforced traditional monolingual and bilingual frameworks while overlooking the rich metalinguistic, cultural, and intellectual resources that students bring to English classrooms. This article critically examines past ELT efforts, policies and their outcomes through a translanguaging lens, which challenges the rigid language separation ideology in traditional models and encourages the use of all linguistic repertoires in learning English as a target language. This article provides fresh perspectives on the strengths and weaknesses of past initiatives, as well as suggestions for developing linguistically and culturally sustainable ELT models based on translanguaging scholarship.

English learners (ELs) with disabilities are disproportionately less likely than their EL peers without disabilities to be reclassified as Fluent English Proficient (FEP) in US public schools. Research has begun to explore how state reclassification policies, specifically the criteria needed to be considered FEP, may contribute to reclassification disparities. Given the complexities of measuring and understanding English language proficiency (ELP) growth for ELs with disabilities, there have been calls for states to incorporate teacher or team input as a criterion for reclassification. Research, however, has yet to examine how teachers make sense of ELP data for ELs with disabilities and ultimately make reclassification recommendations. This qualitative case study fills this gap, investigating the data interpretation and decision-making of teachers in one urban school district. It documents how teachers’ beliefs about standardized ELP assessment data coupled with a scarcity of resources and training contributed to reclassification decision-making driven not by data but by teachers’ values and instincts.

The trap vowel /æ/ is known to display a complex variable duration in many English dialects, but this phenomenon is understudied in Australian English. Previous analyses suggest that trap duration is sensitive to the effects of following phonetic environments in complex ways, but that a lexically specific effect may also operate in determining duration. This study aims to investigate phonetic and lexical effects through an acoustic analysis of trap duration in Australian English. Speakers from a range of areas in Sydney that vary in their ethnic and linguistic diversity produced the trap vowel in select phonetic contexts. Results suggest that trap exhibits a complex hierarchy of durations which are conditioned by the characteristics of the following coda, as well as a notably long duration in the affective adjectives mad and sad compared to other words with coda /d/ that were tested. However, these effects were found to be relatively less pronounced among speakers from more ethnically and linguistically diverse regions of Sydney. This may be attributed to high levels of language and dialect contact occurring in more diverse areas resulting in a gradual reduction in the degree of trap durational variability.

This study investigates heritage speakers (HSs) of Spanish in the U.S. and potential areas of divergence in speech from homeland speakers. To examine the relative contribution of prosody and segments in perceived heritage accent, we conducted an accent rating task with speech samples of second language learners (L2s), HSs and homeland speakers presented in three conditions: original, prosody-only and segments-only. The stimuli were rated by two groups: HSs and homeland speakers. The results revealed that HSs and homeland speakers had similar global accent perceptions, rating HSs as more native-like than L2s but less native-like than homeland speakers. We found that both rater groups aligned with a dominant language ideology of Spanish; speakers who were judged as more native-like were perceived as residing in a Spanish-speaking country. Our findings also demonstrate that prosody contributes more to perceived heritage accent than segments, while segments contribute more to L2 foreign accent than prosody.

Recognizing the distributed nature of agency in human–AI interactions, this article proposes a framework for examining the power dynamics that undergird the use of generative AI (GenAI) for language learning. Drawing on Darvin and Norton’s model of investment, it adopts a critical sociomaterial lens to cast a light on the entanglement of bodies, objects and discourse in these interactions, while highlighting how issues of positioning, access to resources, and ideological reproduction emerge from this perspective. Human agency both interacts with and is constrained or amplified by the functionalities of GenAI. To invest in agentive GenAI practices that enable meaningful learning and the achievement of their own intentions, learners must not only recognize the power of GenAI to steer interactions and promote specific ways of thinking, but also resist fully delegating the production of meaning and texts to technology. Cultivating critical digital literacies that recognize how power operates in human-AI interactions is integral to fostering reflexive, inclusive and equitable language learning and teaching in the age of GenAI.

Speaking is often challenging for language learners to develop due to factors such as anxiety and limited practice opportunities. Dialogue-based computer-assisted language learning (CALL) systems have the potential to address these challenges. While there is evidence of their usefulness in second language (L2) learning, the effectiveness of these systems on speaking development remains unclear. The present meta-analysis attempts to provide a comprehensive overview of the effect of dialogue-based CALL in facilitating L2 speaking development. After an extensive literature search, we identified 16 studies encompassing 89 effect sizes. Through a three-level meta-analysis, we calculated the overall effect size and investigated the potential moderating effect of 13 variables spanning study context, study design and treatment, and measures. Results indicated a moderate overall effect size (g = .61) of dialogue systems on L2 learners’ speaking development. Notably, three moderators were found to have significant effects: type of system, system meaning constraint, and system modality. No significant moderating effect was identified for education stage, L2 proficiency, learning location, corrective feedback, length of intervention, type of interaction, measure, and key assessment component. These findings suggest directions for future research, including the role of corrective feedback in dialogue-based CALL, the effectiveness of such systems across proficiency levels, and their potential in diverse learning contexts with the integration of generative artificial intelligence.