Learning multiword expressions (MWEs) typically involves exposure to language input, such as through reading and listening. However, this way of learning can be rather slow. Therefore, finding strategies to enhance learning from input is crucial for language acquisition. In this study, 80 Iranian learners of English as a foreign language read…

This study analyzes four English synonyms -- clear, obvious, apparent, and evident -- concentrating on meanings, distribution across genre, collocations, and semantic preference and prosody. The data were drawn from learner's dictionaries and the Corpus of the Contemporary American English (COCA). It was discovered that the four synonyms share the…

The purpose of this dictionary and thesaurus of contemporary figurative language and metaphor is to identify all the words and phrases used figuratively and metaphorically in everyday contemporary English and to categorize each word or phrase not only by meaning but also by what cognitive linguists and others have described variously as figure and…

In an upcoming coverage-comprehension study, we plan to assess learners' meaning-recall knowledge of words as they occur in the study's reading passage. As several meaning-recall test formats exist, the purpose of this small-scale study (N = 10) was to determine which of three formats was most similar to a criterion interview regarding mean score…

For English language learners, mastering the use of near-synonyms can be challenging. Despite the semantic similarities of English synonyms, they are not interchangeable in all contexts. The objectives of this corpus-based study are to examine differences between the near-synonymous adjectives "blank," "empty" and…

This paper studies the two English synonymous words "little" and "small," and their Thai equivalents n??j4 and lek4. In addition to monolingual and bilingual dictionaries, British National Corpus, Thai National Corpus and an English-Thai parallel corpus were used in this study. It is found that "little" and…

Recent literature in the field of L2 vocabulary assessment has advocated for the development of written receptive vocabulary tests such as Vocabulary Levels Tests (VLTs) that use: (a) meaning-recall item formats, (b) a minimum of 40 item counts per 1,000-frequency band to improve level estimates, and (c) lemmas (not word-families) as the lexical…

The purpose of this dictionary and thesaurus of contemporary figurative language and metaphor is to identify all the words and phrases used figuratively and metaphorically in everyday English and to categorize each word or phrase not only by meaning but also by what cognitive linguists and others have described variously as figure and ground,…

The COVID-19 pandemic, has greatly affected the lives of everyone. One major concern during this period has been that of communication including content dealing with possibilities and ideology concerning freedom. This study aims to analyze the application of if-conditionals expressing options and possibilities during the COVID-19 pandemic using…

Choosing the right word to express meaning can be a challenge for English language learners (ELLs) in both English as second language and English as a foreign language settings, persisting through all proficiency levels in productive language use for several reasons. In order to make correct word choices, ELLs must master the various aspects of a…

The meaning of words can be influenced by their co-occurrences. Semantic prosody (SP) is attitudinal and evaluative meaning inferred from the habitual lexical environment of a word in a corpus. By introducing SP in an English teaching classroom, teachers can reveal more implicit knowledge about language usage and assist students in reaching…

With increasingly rapid advances in machine translation (MT) technology, such as Google Translate, MT has become an indispensable learning resource for second or additional language learners. Many studies indicate that MT or postediting of MT (PEMT) can be an effective tool for L2 learning and teaching. Nevertheless, little research illustrates…

This study investigated the effects of teaching vocabulary through the lexical instructional approach in EFL intermediate level students. Ninety-five (95) students participated in a non-equivalent pre-test-post-test quasi-experimental design study. The participants were given vocabulary competence pre-test in order to check their homogeneity in…

The study aims to investigate differences and similarities of two synonymous nouns, chance and opportunity. The sources of data were from the Corpus of Contemporary American English (COCA) and online dictionaries. The study applied both quantitative and qualitative methodology. Throughout the five text types of COCA (i.e. spoken, fiction, popular…

English phrasal verbs (PVs) are ubiquitous and often polysemous. These lexical items are thus very important, but also challenging for ESL/EFL learners. Substantial research that can inform instructional approaches to PVs has already been conducted. One strand of this research has focused on identifying PVs that merit prioritization in learning.…