"Conversation," the social and socialising activity "par excellence," has undergone a profound semiotic and phenomenological transformation in the contemporary age. Broadly speaking, conversation used to be associated with speech and a shared context of situation in many linguistic approaches (e.g., conversation analysis), but…

Drawing on Lave and Wenger's (1991) and Wenger's (1998) "communities of practice" (CoP) framework, this study explores the shared repertoire of humor practices in the creation of community within the context of a culturally diverse and multilevel adult Arabic language classroom consisting of two native speakers, five heritage language learners…

This article discusses challenges involved in contrastive discourse analysis that emerged while carrying out a follow-up study into a Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) program in Spain. Reversing the focus on English of much contrastive rhetoric work, the study investigates the effect of second-language-English on…

The objective of this research is to investigate the function of discourse markers as an interpersonal-interactive feature in a science lecture in second language (L2) setting in Malaysia. This research employs qualitative method while the data are gathered through non-participant observation and video recording. From the findings, there are…

This paper examines discourses of creativity in English-language education in post-colonial Hong Kong, where educational reform has mandated a change from transmissive to interactive modes of teaching and learning and a shift towards more creative methods of teaching English. The literature is reviewed with regard to discourses of creativity both…

This paper investigates the role of a Turkish Saturday school in the United States in helping students maintain the Turkish language and form a sense of Turkish cultural identity. This case study of one Turkish Saturday school in New York City builds on research in language maintenance and shift, and in language ideologies and linguistic identity…

In this two-year ethnographic study, I critically examined the problematic nature of the construct French as a Second Language (FSL), drawing specifically from the lived experiences of Canadian youth of Italian origin, participating in a teacher education course to prepare teachers of French. Using discourse analysis of interviews, observations,…

In this study, we intend to discuss questioning as a sign of Intercultural Communicative Competence in plurilingual environments, stressing the relationship between questioning and the process of developing discovery skills in Romance chat-rooms. Focusing specifically on episodes beginning with intercultural questioning, we will analyse: (1)…

The present study explored how negotiation of meaning occurred in task-based synchronous computer-mediated communication (SCMC) environment among college English learners. Based on the theoretical framework of the interaction hypothesis and negotiation of meaning, four research questions arose: (1) how negotiation of meaning occur in non-native…

This study describes how a novice ESOL (English to Speakers of Other Languages) student teacher successfully navigates an instructional path in a one-on-one tutoring session with a second grade student. We document the student teacher's strategies to both engage and disengage her student, who alternately resists and cooperates throughout the…

While some recent pioneering work (e.g., Eslami-Rasekh, 2005; Eslami & Eslami-Rasekh, 2008; Yates & Wigglesworth, 2005) has begun to investigate the effects of instructional pragmatics in teacher education, little has been explored in depth as to the way in which teacher cognition develops in the classroom discourse of language teacher…

This study investigates the ways writers comment on the results of their research. Making claims in the form of Commenting on Results is a key move in discussion of results sections. Using data drawn from published journal articles and master dissertations in Language Teaching, the study investigates how published academics and students writing…

In view of the growing body of research on humor and language play in computer-mediated communication (CMC) which--more than any other medium--has been associated with goofing off, joking, and other nonserious communication, this paper compares spontaneous foreign language play (L2 play) in text-only synchronous computer-mediated versus…

Learners engaged in synchronous computer-mediated communication (SCMC) work collaboratively to construct knowledge by providing each other with implicit and explicit feedback. In addition to its value in encouraging learners to make modifications toward target-like forms, the implicitness or explicitness of the feedback provides a means to…

Encountering trouble producing a word in the midst of a turn at talk is an everyday experience for foreign language learners. By employing conversation analysis (CA) as a central tool for analysis, the current study explores how students undertake a range of word searches while they organize a pair work session designed for the purpose of language…