Food is useful in the transference of semantic aspects that are vital in the construction of masculinity in society. Consequently, foodsemic metaphors that aid in the conceptualization of "omosacha" (a man) are pervasive in Ekegusii. Metaphor use may, however, present difficulties in comprehension due to the various interpretations that…

How do children learn gender stereotypes? Although people commonly use statements like "Girls are as good as boys at math" to express gender equality, such "subject-complement statements" subtly perpetuate the stereotype that boys are naturally more skilled. The syntax of such statements frames the item in the complement…

In this study of more than 1,000 typical and at-risk elementary Arabic-speaking students in Oman, we explore relationships between pragmatic (and other) language skills, literacy, cognition, and behavior and the degree to which demography impacts performance on associated tasks. We found, in most cases, that females performed better than males,…

We report results from children learning to read in one of four different languages: Croatian, English, Estonian and Swedish. The languages all have an alphabetical script but vary greatly on the dimension deep-shallow (or complexity-simplicity, or opacity-transparency), i.e., how close orthography and phonology are related. These languages also…

While monolingual English speakers acquire most pronouns by age 5, acquisition amid prevalent, normative code-mixing, such as in Trinidad, is underexplored. This study examines how Trinidadian 3- to 5-year-olds express third-person subject, object, reflexive and possessive pronouns and factors influencing pronoun choices. Seventy-five preschoolers…

The Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) and many of its dialects have been investigated, described, and analyzed morphologically by intensive previous research. However, the dialect of Sakakan tribes in the north region of the Arab peninsula has not received any adequate attention in this regard. Therefore, this research aims at describing, analyzing and…

Many languages make a T/V distinction when addressing an interlocutor, and Basque also has two main levels of formality: "zuka" (formal) and "hika" (informal). The peculiarity of the Basque informal form of address "hika" is that its verbal morphology varies depending on the addressee's gender. The use of…

Post-structuralist theories of language and gender have become increasingly attractive to language learning researchers. However, masculinity, as part of a socially and culturally constructed system, in relation to English language learning has rarely been investigated. The current study examines how male English language learners negotiate their…

An epicene pronoun is a gender-neutral singular pronoun used in sentences when the gender of the subject is unknown or unspecified. In English, "he" and "they" are commonly-used epicene pronouns. Until recently, "he" has been widely accepted as being grammatically correct. However, many have argued that he is sexist…

Grammatically masculine role-nouns (e.g., "Studenten"masc.'students') can refer to men and women but may favor an interpretation where only men are considered the referent. If true, this has implications for a society aiming to achieve equal representation in the workplace since, for example, job adverts use such role descriptions. To…

Critical applied linguistics remains deeply relevant today, arguably more than ever, but it needs constant renewal. This paper returns to these concerns to assess where this project has got to and where it may be headed. I review first both long-term and short-term political trends, from the rise of neoliberalism to the COVID pandemic. Next, I…

There remains considerable disagreement about which factors drive second language (L2) ultimate attainment. Age of onset (AO) appears to be a robust factor, lending support to theories of maturational constraints on L2 acquisition. The present study is an investigation of factors that influence grammatical and lexical complexity at the stage of L2…

A number of longitudinal studies of L2 production have reported frequency effects wherein learners' produce more frequent words as a function of time. The current study investigated the spoken output of English L2 learners over a four-month period of time using both native and non-native English speaker frequency norms for both word types and word…

We report the results from two experiments examining native and non-native German speakers' sensitivity to crossover constraints on pronoun resolution. Our critical stimuli sentences contained personal pronouns in either strong (SCO) or weak crossover (WCO) configurations. Using eye-movement monitoring during reading and a gender-mismatch…

Three studies test the link between word order in binomials and psychological and demographic characteristics of a speaker. While linguists have already suggested that psychological, cultural and societal factors are important in choosing word order in binomials, the vast majority of relevant research was focused on general factors and on broadly…