Children's sentence interpretations often lack flexibility. For example, when French-speaking adults and children hear ambiguous "wh"-questions like "Where did Annie explain that she rode her horse?", they preferentially associate the "wh"-phrase with the first verb and adopt the main clause interpretation (e.g.,…

The current study examines the role of instruction in developing L2 learners' ability to comprehend two types of implicatures: indirect refusals and indirect opinions. According to Taguchi (2005), these implicatures differ in the degrees of conventionality involved in producing them, hence requiring different degrees of processing effort on the…

This study reports findings from two truth value judgment experiments to address two research questions on Mandarin: (i) whether children and adults have the knowledge of the structural constraint Principle C in their pronoun resolution; and (ii) whether adults and children show the prohibition effect of the cyclic-c-command constraint or the QR…

A large number of empirical studies have demonstrated the impact of lexical chunks on foreign language learning. However, reliable and efficient use of the lexical approach remains a problem. In this paper, a revised chunk teaching approach, based on Data-Driven Learning (DDL) activities and language awareness theory, is proposed and tested.…

The World Wide Web has often been considered too vast to be consulted for linguistic purposes or for language learning. This paper will explore whether second language learners can be taught how to navigate the web (i.e., how to perform Google linguistic research, or "Googleology"), in order to improve their language skills. To this aim,…

An extensive number of studies have examined the effectiveness of incidental focus on form (FonF) measured through uptake in primarily communicative activities and established an association between learners' uptake of linguistic features and their subsequent second language development. In this strand of research, the analysis of linguistic forms…

An anaphoric reference to the complement-set is a reference to the set that does not fulfil the predicate of the preceding sentence. Preferred reference to the complement-set has been found in eye movements when a character's implicit desire for a high amount has been denied using a negative emotion. We recorded event-related potentials to examine…

EFL textbooks, academic material, and language proficiency tests include phrasal verbs. However, many Lebanese high-school EFL learners reflect unfamiliarity with phrasal verbs and tend to avoid them in their language production. To this end, a twofold research was conducted. First, a corpus linguistics analysis of the Lebanese national EFL…

Lexical bundles are two or more string of words that co-occur frequently in a corpus. Hence, this corpus-based research design study examines the effects of lexical bundles on English as a foreign language learner's abstract genre academic writing skills, and it also investigates students' perception towards lexical bundles instruction to enhance…

In this article, we present the results of an eight-week in-class intervention, during which binomial expressions comprised of academic vocabulary (results and conclusions, facts and circumstances) were presented to intermediate-level learners of English. Constraints that govern the preferred order of highly fixed binomials were explained as the…

This study examines the effect of enhanced input of lexical chunks on the performance of Arabic-speaking English learners' writings. Lexical chunks, containing their forms, meanings, and functions, stored and recovered as a single component in brains, may alleviate language processing problems and increase language proficiency. The research…

The pedagogical value of collocations has gained much attention in recent years. Collocations provide learners with a powerful organizing principle for language. The present study aimed to examine the efficiency of enhancing the input data provided via reading including frequent collocations in writing restatements of EFL students. Therefore, the…

Italian relative clauses like "Il bambino che bacia la mamma" 'the child that kisses the mom' are ambiguous between a subject reading and an object reading with postverbal subject. However, the latter is scarcely accessible for word order and theory-internal considerations. This study aims at investigating the role of semantic…

It is generally accepted that collocation is essential for establishing synonymy. They are related linguistic features which are important and useful for language learners. Given this importance, this present study considered the experience of 120 Thai English as a Foreign Language (EFL) students. The study explored the students' knowledge of…

The present study aims to explore the effects of corpus-based teaching on English language learners' pragmatic comprehension and production of 19 formulaic sequences (FS), categorized under agreements, disagreements, self-clarifications and other-clarifications. The study had a quasi-experimental research design with a pre-test, immediate…