In recent years, an array of studies has focused on 'translationese' (i.e., unique features that manifest in translated texts, causing second language (L2) writings to be similar to translated texts but different from native language (L1) writings). This intriguing linguistic pattern has motivated scholars to investigate potential markers for…

This study investigated the effect of formulaic language on L2 learners' ability to decode words in listening texts. One possibility was that formulas would facilitate listening by reducing the need to process every word of the sequences. However, a contrasting possibility was that the commonly reduced nature of formulaic words would hinder…

The use of 'chunks' is not only a common and characteristic feature of first language use, but may also be a distinguishing factor between less and more proficient second language users. The present study aimed at investigating potential correlations between chunk use and holistically rated proficiency scores and development over time in advanced…

According to discoursal views on language, variations in textualization strategies are always sociocontextually motivated and never happen at random. The textual forms employed in a text, along with many other discoursal and contextual factors, could certainly affect the readability of the text, making it more or less processable for the same…

Software can facilitate English as a Foreign Language (EFL) students' self-correction of their free-form writing by detecting errors; this article examines the proportion of errors which software can detect. A corpus of 13,644 words of written English was created, comprising 90 compositions written by Spanish-speaking students at levels A2-B2…

In the field of ELT, a growing awareness has been paid to the use of correct and appropriate word combinations. Of methods and techniques existed in the literature, the issue of lexical collocation gets a great deal of attention. However, one of the main obstacles, particularly for non-native writers (NNW), is indeterminate knowledge of word…

The present study aimed at investigating the effects of learning lexical chunks on the speaking fluency of EFL Iranian learners (between the ages of 13 and 17) and at the same time taking into consideration the examining participants' use of lexical chunks and their knowledge of them. To this end, after administrating the Quick Placement Test…

In this study, the resemblance of the language learning course books used in Turkey to authentic language spoken by native speakers is explored by using a corpus-based approach. For this, the 10-million-word spoken part of the British National Corpus was selected as reference corpus. After that, all language learning course books used in high…

This study aims to test the extent to which 120 Kuwaiti EFL learners are aware of the structure of relative clauses in English through measuring their ability to produce this structure. It also checks whether the English proficiency level of the participants plays a role in their answers on the test. For this purpose, a sentence combination task…

Lexical bundles are essential for fluency, but their incompleteness is a stumbling block for learners. In this study, two presentation methods to increase awareness of lexical bundles through explicit noticing are explored and compared with incidental exposure. The three conditions in this study were as follows: noticing with schematic linguistic…

This study analyses the effects of data-driven learning (DDL) on the phraseology used by 223 English students at an Italian university. The students studied the genre of opinion survey reports through paper-based and hands-on exploration of a reference corpus. They then wrote their own report and a learner corpus of these texts was compiled. A…

Lexical bundles are worthy of attention in both teaching and testing writing as they function as basic building blocks of discourse. This corpus-based study focuses on the rated writing responses to the email tasks in the Canadian English Language Proficiency Index Program® General test (CELPIP-General) and explores the extent to which lexical…

This study compared the effectiveness of negative evidence and enriched input on learning the verb-noun collocations. There were 52 English as Foreign Language (EFL) learners in this research study and they were randomly assigned to the negative evidence or enriched input groups. While the negative evidence group (n = 27) was provided with…

This study examined two common accounts of heritage speakers' nonnative attainment in their heritage/first language (L1), one attributing it to the influence of the second language (L2) and another to insufficient L1 input. Three groups of children who were heritage speakers of Arabic and who varied in their age of L2 exposure and type and amount…

This study investigates the impact that study in Australia has on the lexical knowledge of Saudi Arabian students. It focuses on: 1) the effects that the length of study in Australia has on the acquisition of lexical collocations, as reflected by lexical knowledge tests, and 2) whether there is a significant gender difference in the acquisition of…