Health communication is a critical component of public health, which includes health education resources. Resource effectiveness is improved where health literacy demands, including the cultural appropriateness of resources, match the intended audience. International guidelines support the tailoring of resources for migrants from culturally and…

Although lexical diversity is often used as a measure of productive proficiency (e.g., as an aspect of lexical complexity) in SLA studies involving oral tasks, relatively little research has been conducted to support the reliability and/or validity of these indices in spoken contexts. Furthermore, SLA researchers commonly use indices of lexical…

Emojis have become a ubiquitous part of everyday text communication worldwide. Cohn et al. (Cognit Res Princ Implic 4(1):1-18, 2019) studied the grammatical structure of emoji usage among English speakers and found a correlation between the sequence of emojis used and English word order, tending towards an subject-verb-object (SVO) sequence.…

Although some critics consider it time-consuming and demanding, proponents of the monolingual approach for field research (i.e., learning to speak a target field language as part of the research process) argue that it can provide a unique insight into its structures. However, this claim remains largely unsubstantiated in the available literature…

This essay analyzes the rhetorical framing tactics of a group of disability activists to understand how they use key words, topic shifts, and other framing maneuvers to amplify marginalized voices in public debates. Focusing on a town hall meeting and a legislator update meeting between activists and lawmakers, the author uses "stasis"…

This study aims to investigate the relationship between written and oral reasoning in an undergraduate chemistry laboratory course as part of an argument-based inquiry approach, which is also a generative learning environment, known as the Science Writing Heuristic (SWH). The study employed the data-transformation variant of convergent design of…

Sustainable and innovative programs to support students in their transition to university and improve student progress rates and retention are in high demand and short supply. An institution-wide model was established for an online Embedded Tutor Program. The program supports commencing undergraduate students and is sustainable post-pandemic.…

The writing system -- the transparency of orthography in alphabet-based systems and differences between logographic and phonetic-based systems -- can affect the efficiency of inferential word learning when words are introduced visually. It can also shape how people self-evaluate their learning success (we refer to such type of self-evaluation as…

The purpose of this study was to explore the multidimensional roles of disclaimers in Thai communication, emphasizing the factors influencing the perceptions and therefore the interpretations of the messages conveyed. Through a mixed-methods approach, this two-pronged study encompassing a survey and semi-structured interviews attempted to analyze…

The primary goal of this meta-analysis was to estimate the overall size of the relation between rapid automatized naming (RAN) and spelling in alphabetic languages and to examine what factors may moderate their relation. In addition, we examined if the size of the RAN-spelling relation is similar to that of the RAN-reading relation. A…

This paper explores the ways in which 'good teaching' is constructed through mentors' written lesson observation feedback during Initial Teacher Education (ITE). Written lesson observation feedback has received little research attention, yet represents a potentially powerful activity for teachers' development. It is also an important aspect of…

To date, language testing research has devoted little attention to adult L2 learners with low levels of alphabetic print literacy (LESLLA), even though this population makes up for a substantial proportion of the candidature of language tests used for migration purposes. This special issue focuses on LESLLA learners, shows how literacy impacts…

Reading involves mapping combinations of a learned visual code (letters) onto meaning. Previous studies have shown that when visual word recognition is challenged by visual degradation, one way to mitigate these negative effects is to provide "top-down" contextual support through a written congruent sentence context. Crowding is a…

Metadiscourse comprises the linguistic resources used by writers to organize texts, engage readers, project stances towards their texts or readers, or position themselves in relation to readers (e.g. "I suggest," "however," "for example," "perhaps," "it is clear that," "interesting").…

Letters and numbers are different domains, and their differentiation increases with schooling. It has nonetheless been argued that reading alphabetic and numerical materials partly involves the same processes, even in adults. Whether individuals with dyslexia have difficulty reading and writing numbers remains to be established. This study…