If maximal exposure were the key to success in language learning, then adult learners at the university level would be doomed to fail. Not only are they presumably too old to learn additional languages effectively, but target language (TL) input appears to be insufficient, especially when other languages are allowed in class. Nevertheless,…

Studies assessing the grammatical knowledge of speakers of Spanish as a heritage language have largely focused on the Spanish subjunctive mood and have concluded, almost unanimously, that heritage speakers' knowledge of the Spanish subjunctive is non-native-like and subject to incomplete acquisition. However, there is also evidence that while…

Free listing tasks are a common data collection method used by cultural anthropologists, language historians and linguists (Nolan, 2002; Ryan et al., 2000; Weller & Romney, 1988; Wolfram & Schillings-Estes, 1998). These tasks are interviews in which a researcher asks groups of respondents to list words or expressions that come to mind for…

We present a new corpus design for multi-lingual corpora that involve intra-speaker variation in different situational-functional contexts, including primarily spoken but also the written mode, with the aim towards enhancing language documentation efforts and resources. We illustrate how this comparative design and the resulting cross-culturally…

Research on the acquisition of Mayan languages has shown child-directed communication (CDC) to be low in frequency. Nevertheless, long-term linguistic-anthropological research with the Tsotsil Mayan in Southern Mexico has documented episodes in family life when children engage in interactional routines or interactional formats (IFs) with their…

As teacher education programs encourage more candidates to pursue bilingual certification, a need exists to improve the ways that preservice teachers (PSTs) are prepared to teach in bilingual classrooms. Research suggests the importance of preparing PSTs in the area of linguistic ideological clarity. Scholars define ideological clarity as an…

In this paper we analyze the semantic and pragmatic properties of a colloquial interrogative construction attested in European Spanish, which we label invariable "qué" questions (IQQs). In doing so, we contribute to the better understanding of a relatively understudied phenomenon in Spanish, given that IQQs have been mainly approached…

This study explores the ways in which master thesis writers position their research in the field of English language teaching in a context where academic literacies are still a developing field. From a social semiotic perspective, this paper aims to identify the resources writers use to represent their object of study and provide a context and…

This article uses cognitive measures previously developed within linguistic relativity research to explore the thinking patterns of Yucatec Maya-Spanish bilingual children in the Yucatan peninsula. These measures were designed to detect cognitive patterns associated with specific language patterns. Here, these measures are used to test whether 12…

In this article, I notice that English now is a dominant language and I highlight some features which actually make English language great. I also consider that these facts may lead a Spanish language user wrongly believe that applying English peculiar grammatical strengths to Spanish would make Spanish a better means of communication: he would…

This paper is focused on one of the most common and basic ways of processing corpus information; concordance, and how it can be used in the classroom to offer language learners useful vocabulary that they would face in genuine conversations and help them detect language patterns as this ability helps them with their learning process. In addition,…

This article focuses on the use of the repertory grid technique as a research instrument for conducting and analyzing interviews in the field of teaching English as a foreign language. As a demonstration of the explanatory usefulness of this methodological framework, a pilot study was carried out to elicit second language teachers' tacit beliefs…

This study introduces a new methodology for integrating musical and linguistic data in language documentation, using ABC notation and open-source tools like ELAN and MuseScore. Designed for portability and exportability, and to facilitate both linguistic analysis and community-oriented material development, this methodology is used here to explore…

Spanish generally shows a Sequence of Tense (SOT) phenomenon in subjunctive clauses: the tense of the embedded clause (present or past) must agree with the tense of the matrix clause. It has been reported, however, that one kind of violation sometimes occurs, in which a present tense subjunctive clause is embedded under a past tense matrix clause…

This study's objective is to analyse repair sequences for referring problems that occur in conversation with young children (two to three years old), which have shown how reference recognition unfolds along a collaborative process. The results reveal that caretakers frame varying repair questions and that the children locally answer the…