While discourse markers (DMs) are crucial for coherence and interactional competence, previous research suggests that learners' usage of DMs differs from L1 speakers. Prior research has taken either a discourse-functional or interactional approach, yet combining these two methods may provide greater understanding of the unique learner…

Language is inherently variable, and learner language is particularly variable. The variationist paradigm considers learner language a heterogeneously variable yet inherently rule-governed system. Specifically, learners' alternation between native-like and nonnative-like variants of a variable or invariable target native speaker (NS) form…

This study attempts to explain a systematic phenomenon that has been described in interlanguage grammars crosslinguistically: Null-Prep, which consists of omitting the obligatory preposition in certain movement constructions. We propose that Null-Prep is not related to lack of knowledge of "wh"-movement, as previously assumed, but to…

The complexity of the linguistic environment in Cameroon raises the question of context and its role in the acquisition of another language. This paper draws a dichotomy between learners in such contexts considered rural and those regarded as urban or cosmopolitan. Using the irregular verb as a yardstick, an evaluation of the acquisition of…

The research investigated pragmatic transfer in responses to English tag questions by L1 Thai learners based on Interlanguage Pragmatics, specifically pragmatic transfer (Kasper & Blum-Kulka, 1993). The L1 Thai learners were categorized into two groups according to their English proficiency levels: advanced and intermediate. Oral and written…

This study investigated features of first language and cultural interference in Thai EFL learners' English paragraph writing on popular culture. Drawing from theoretical grounds of interlanguage, language interference, and rhetorical interference, the sample of 30 English paragraphs of Thai EFL undergraduate learners was examined quantitatively…

In commercial materials for the teaching of second language (L2) pronunciation, common bottom-up approaches segment phonology into a series of discrete and decontextualized linguistic components with rules that students are encouraged to internalize. Such approaches seem out of step with recent second language acquisition (SLA) theory and research…