This study was a mixed method research. The quantitative part investigated Saudi English learners' English vivid phrasal (VP) idiom detection differences by lexical level, semi- lexical level, and post-lexical level, as well as comprehension and interpretation by zero-context and full-context conditions. It also researched the extent to which…

The present study aims to reveal the use of high-frequency verbs "make" and "do" when they occur in a verb+noun combination in the argumentative essays of Turkish learners of English. In this context, the present study investigated the grammatical and semantic patterns and erroneous productions in the learner corpus. The…

This study examines the cognitive processes underlying the comprehension of L2 idiomatic expressions by using two different visual instructional techniques -- pictorial representation of literal meanings versus pictorial representation of figurative meanings of each idiomatic expression -- considering two settings (EFL vs. ESL), two different…

This paper expands the theoretical base of intergroup and intercultural communication by testing a new communication model of interdependence (CMII), defined in terms of the embedded nature of groups Giles, M., R. Pines, H. Giles, and A. Gardikiotis. 2018. "Towards a Communication Model of Intergroup Interdependence." Atlantic Journal of…

This study examined the developmental trajectories of Arabic grammatical number in Arabic-English bilingual children. The samples consisted of 80 individuals (40 monolingual children residing in Jordan and 40 bilingual children residing in the USA), aged between 5 and 9 years. Data was collected through two tasks involving picture able objects and…

This study investigated second language distribution of Chinese connectives by tallying responses on a mini-discourse completion test taken by English-speaking learners with different language learning backgrounds and at different proficiency levels. The results showed that an underuse pattern underlay practically all Chinese connectives as a…

Idioms is a special culture which is shaped in the daily lives of the local people, particularly the idioms of diet has a close relation with various elements, such as the eating custom, history, fairy tales, geographic situations. Also, different ways of translation on different diet idioms in English and Chinese will be analyzed in this article.…

The literature on formulaic language lacks sufficient research on how L2 learners make progress in native-like formulaicity of their target language. This study analyzed the use of formulaic sequences (FSs) by 56 Chinese university English majors in their prepared monologues at the beginning and end of a three-year period and compared the student…

This paper investigates the intrasentential codeswitching patterns of two sets of English-Finnish bilingual teenagers in a corpus of 208 bilingual sentences. Two of the subjects live in Finland and two in the United States; therefore, the macro-sociolinguistic situations for them are reverse. For those living in the United States, the minority…

A study examined the validity of the distinction between interactional language, used to express social relations and personal attitudes, and transactional language, which conveys factual or prepositional information and is message oriented, within and across languages and cultures. Data were drawn from natural telephone conversations of three…

Analysis of 12 Scottish and 12 American 3- to 6-year-olds interacting with adults indicated that, because Scottish adults use the present perfect tense more frequently in their speech to children than American adults do, Scottish children use the tense in their speech long before American children do. (Author/CB)

Compares essays by college students from Mali and from the United States, exploring cross-culturally the influence of orality and audience or written discourse. Finds that the "other-directed," group-directed dimension of the Malians' writing contrasts with the overwhelming by self-referential dimension of the U.S. students. (SR)

Findings suggest that (1) dyslexia is more prevalent in the United States than in Italy, (2) reading disabilities are strongly associated with disorders of verbal processing in both countries (although some American dyslexics also show visual-motor deficits), and (3) there is a greater dissociation between reading comprehension and decoding in…

A comparison of German and American advertising reveals differences in technique and structures. Persuasion is central in both, but the grammatical structures and illocutionary devices available in each language vary. The culture is also reflected in the type and degree to which each language uses techniques of persuasive language. The findings…

Conversations between mothers and children from three different cultural groups were analyzed to determine culturally preferred narrative elicitation patterns. The three groups included Japanese-speaking mother-child pairs living in Japan, Japanese-speaking, mother-child pairs living in the United States, and English-speaking Canadian mother-child…