Two issues pertaining to the use of metonymy that plays a central role in Slabakova et al. (2016) are mentioned in the very title of their study--novel metonymy and regular metonymy. In this article I draw attention to some problems with the identification of these as well as with the assumption that these are opposites of each other.

What opportunities and challenges occur in reclaiming Indigenous languages within state institutions? This article considers the case of intercultural bilingual education in Ecuador. The school system is remarkable as a national-level initiative run by and for Indigenous "pueblos" and nationalities. Based primarily on two years of…

Applied linguists and Communication scholars have mainly adopted different yet complementary approaches to research on language and health communication. Using discourse-analytic (DA) approaches such as conversation analysis and corpus analysis, applied linguists tend to focus on describing and explicating health messaging techniques in naturally…

In English as an additional language writing, error correction or error feedback is most commonly referred to as 'written corrective feedback (WCF)'. The emphasis on 'correctness' in 'WCF' suggests native-speakerist standards or norms, which are controversial in an increasingly globalized world. In this Forum article, I discuss the problems…

In the field of educational psychology, self-regulation is part of a well-established research paradigm that has been extensively applied to learning contexts. However, despite proposals highlighting its benefits, some researchers claim that its cross-pollination into applied linguistics has been slow. In their recent "Applied…

This article discusses a sociocultural usage-based perspective on the development of sociolinguistic competence. Previous research has focused on learners' acquisition and use of alternative ways of 'saying the same thing' (i.e. native-like variation) in relation to study abroad, contact with native speakers, and pedagogy. Missing from the…

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…

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…

When asylum seekers flee persecution or war in their home countries, they often arrive in a new country seeking asylum, without documentation that can prove their nationality. They are thus open to the accusation that they are not actually fleeing persecution and/or war, but they are from another country and they are merely seeking "a better…

This paper illustrates the use of corpus-based analytical techniques to address a range of issues in applied linguistics. This approach provides large databases of naturally occurring discourse, enabling empirical analyses of the actual patterns of use in a language and, when coupled with automatic computational tools, enables analyses of a scope…

Describes a project to code complementation patterns of all verbs in the Collins COBUILD English language corpus, using simple notation based on words and word classes rather than traditional functional categories. This is the first pedagogic grammar to integrate syntax and lexis using corpus data. Explores the possibility of using a pattern…

Seeing language as a complex, dynamic system and language use/acquisition as dynamic adaptedness ("a make-do" solution) to a specific context proves a useful way of understanding change in progress, such as that which occurs with a developing L2 system. This emergentist shift of perspective provides another way of understanding previously observed…

When creative uses of spoken language have been investigated, the main examples have been restricted to particular contexts such as narrative and related story-telling genres. This paper reports on an initial investigation using the 5 million word CANCODE corpus of everyday spoken English and discusses a range of social contexts in which creative…

Considers previous research and data regarding the relative frequencies of a wide variety of lexical items expressing doubt and certainty in written and spoken corpuses and uses the data to evaluate the adequacy of some well-known English as a second language textbooks. (Author/CB)

Examines the language used by native English speakers in business meetings and compares it with the language taught in English textbooks for use in such meetings, demonstrating that there is almost no correspondence between the two and raising questions regarding the usefulness of such textbooks. (Author/CB)