Although there is consensus that second language grammar instruction is needed, some controversial issues remain. Whatever instructional options are selected, it is vital that they allow the development of not only explicit knowledge but also implicit or at least automatized knowledge that can be used in real-time interaction. Since this aim is…

As the global importance of English and its proportion of non-native speakers have continued to grow, research on Global Englishes has prioritized non-native speakers' changing attitudes toward non-native varieties. To investigate changes in attitudes among 'Inner Circle' English speakers, we conceptually replicated Lindemann's (2005) survey of…

This article investigates the connection between multilingual experiences and creative metaphoric competence. As multilingualism has been shown to bring cognitive advantages in creative thinking, this article explores whether the ability to interpret creative metaphors differs in participants with less versus more multilingual experience. The…

Conversely to plenty of studies describing how L1 transfer affects L2 systems, where the two grammars, L1/L2, often only come to interact later in life, less is known of dominant language transfer in heritage language grammars. Unlike in L2 speakers, the dominant language of the heritage speaker potentially affects its weaker language already from…

The article presents a typology of statements that can be made about discourse data. The classification is based on two parameters: level of generality and level of interpretation. Each of these is operationalized into three discrete levels, to yield a nine-cell table containing types of statements going from the presentation of a single case to…

This longitudinal study examined growth patterns of written syntactic complexity of Turkish learners of English. Using a nonexperimental corpus of 852 writing samples by 284 English as a foreign language (EFL) learners over three semesters, the study addressed the following questions: which indices of syntactic complexity characterize the writing…

Usage-based approaches to second language acquisition put a premium on the linguistic input that learners receive and predict that any sequences of words that learners encounter frequently will experience a processing advantage. The current study explores the processing of high-frequency sequences of words known as 'lexical bundles' in beginner…

English is today learnt in multitudes of settings worldwide, making it difficult to characterize relationships between motivation and context in generalized terms (Ushioda 2013). In settings where students have extensive encounters with English outside school, a reluctance to invest effort in formal learning has been observed. To investigate ways…

The goal of this study was to determine the overall effects of pronunciation instruction (PI) as well as the sources and extent of variance in observed effects. Toward this end, a comprehensive search for primary studies was conducted, yielding 86 unique reports testing the effects of PI. Each study was then coded on substantive and methodological…

This article reports a meta-analysis of 42 experiments in 33 published studies involving processing instruction (PI) and production-based instruction (PB) used in the PI studies. The comparative effectiveness of PI and PB showed that although PI was more effective than PB for developing receptive knowledge, PB was just as effective as PI for…

This article reports on the findings of an empirical study that relates translation studies and research on language acquisition/attrition by looking at the interpretation of overt pronominal subjects, previously found to be problematic in both domains. The focus is on the resolution of intra-sentential anaphora and cataphora in Italian by two…

This manuscript reports on a corpus-based comparison of native and nonnative graduate students' language production in an asynchronous learning environment. Using 486 discussion board postings from a five-year period (2009-2013), we analyzed the extent to which native and nonnative university students' writing differed in 10 measures of syntactic…

The present study focuses on the influence of starting age and input on foreign language learning. In relation to starting age, the study investigates whether early starters in instructional settings achieve the same kind of long-term advantage as learners in naturalistic settings and it complements previous research by using data from oral…

English spoken by those who do not share their first language is increasingly referred to as English lingua franca (ELF). For ELF speakers, it can be a challenge to express conflicting opinions, as a common language and/or cultural background cannot be taken for granted. This is recognized by writers of business English textbooks, who provide…

This study compares the relative effectiveness of reading and writing sentences for the incidental acquisition of new vocabulary in a second language. It also examines if recall varies according to the concreteness of target words. Participants were 203 French-speaking intermediate and advanced English as second language (ESL) learners, tested for…