Purpose: We investigated the role of spoken language in the acquisition of literacy in the context of Arabic diglossia, where the written language, Standard Arabic, deviates substantially from the spoken language, Colloquial Arabic, children acquire naturally from birth. Method: The participants (N = 110; 40 girls) were Saudi Arabic--speaking…

This study investigates children's identification of prosodic focus in Hungarian, a language in which syntactic focus-marking is mandatory. Assuming that regular syntactic focus-marking diminishes the disambiguating role of prosodic marking in acquisition, we expected that in sentences in which focus is only disambiguated by prosody, adult-like…

This study aimed to examine the validity of the "simple view of reading" (SVR) model in the diglossic Arabic language. Using a longitudinal design, we tested whether decoding and listening comprehension (LC) in kindergarten can later predict reading comprehension (RC) in the first grade and whether the contribution of LC to RC differs…

This research explores structural relations among the component skills of reading comprehension in Kiswahili. Furthermore, the study examines the relationship between socio-economic status, home and school language use, and home literacy environment with Kiswahili reading outcomes. The study utilized secondary data from the baseline Tusome…

We tested the effects of diglossia and orthography on reading in Arabic, manipulating reading in Spoken Arabic (SA), using Arabizi, in which it is written using Latin letters on computers/phones, and the two forms of the conventional written form Modern Standard Arabic (MSA): vowelled (shallow) and unvowelled (deep). 77 skilled readers in 8th…

This research aims to determine the intelligibility of Thai English used by local vendors on street food menus for East Asian tourists. To achieve the primary goal, the characteristics of Thai English used in dishes on street food menus, including Moo Nam Tok (Spicy sliced pork salad), Pad Thai (Thai-style stir-fried noodles), Khao Pad (Fried…

Classrooms are not always linguistically permeable, and instruction focused on bolstering English reading comprehension too often neglects students' additional linguistic resources in languages other than English. However, to the task of comprehending English text, multilingual readers bring a host of communicative resources across multiple…

The aim of the present work was to investigate the processing of coreferential relations, focusing on their relationship with the working memory. In a reading process, it is essential that readers continuously perform mental operations that involve the working memory, such as storing, retrieving, and manipulating information. For this reason, it…

This project examined academic reading in two contrasting English as a medium of instruction (EMI) university settings in Nepal and Sweden and the unique challenges facing students who are studying in a language other than their primary language. The motivation for the project was to explore the role of high-stakes testing in EMI contexts and the…

Previous research has primarily addressed the effects of language on the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) mathematics and science assessments. More recent research has focused on the effects of language on PISA reading comprehension and literacy assessments on student populations in specific Organization for Economic Cooperation…

Analysis of the different methods of teaching English has become increasingly important as the subject of global Englishes receives greater attention. In Asia, more educators have been using textbooks that are culturally specific in their design; however, a limited number of studies have been conducted that demonstrate their practical efficacy.…

A previous study (Ke, I. 2012. From EFL to English as an international and scientific language: analysing Taiwan's high-school English textbooks in the period 1952-2009. "Language, Culture and Curriculum," 25(2), 173-187) on the trend of English textbooks in Taiwanese high schools showed that the proportion of the lessons embedded in…

The meaning of some phrasal verbs can be guessed from the meanings of the parts (to sit down = sit + down, run after = run + after) and the meaning of some others have to be learned (to put up (a visitor) = accommodate, to hold up = cause delay or try to rob someone) due to their syntactic and semantic complexities. In this regard, the syntactic…

The connection between language and reading is well established across many languages studied to date. Little is known, however, about the role of language in reading in Arabic--a Semitic language characterized by diglossia--in which the oral and written varieties differ across language components. This study examined the relationship among…

Social psychologists have suggested that language-based ideologies related to "stereotype threat" (i.e. variations in performance-based on ability perceptions of language groups) may affect students' academic achievement regardless of school language support. However, it is unclear whether efforts to support students' first language…