Idiomatics--the scientific study of idiomatic language and figurative language--is a pervasive theme in global literature, yet its precise terminology often lacks clear definition. This article addresses this challenge directly by delving into the etymology, significance, and universality of idiomatics. It emphasizes the pivotal role of idiomatics…

Multimodal learning refers to teaching strategies that involve multiple sensory systems simultaneously. Teachers can create materials for students with different learning styles (auditory, visual, kinesthetic reading, and writing). Multimodal learning keeps students engaged, encourages them to apply what they learn in real-life situations,…

Etymologically, the word 'sarcasm' is derived from the Greek "sarkazein," meaning "to speak bitterly or sneer", or, more literally, "to tear flesh" ("sarcasm," 2014). Sarcasm, then, is far from a benign feature of language, and there appears to be an inherent acerbity, or even a note of provocation, located…

This article draws on theoretical work which considers the composition of meetings, in order to think about the form of the meeting in digital environments for higher education. To explore the motif of meeting, I undertake a "compositional interpretation" (Rose, 2012) of the default interface offered by "Collaborate", an…

As new communication technologies enter the classroom, teachers must attend to how digital platforms impact the interpersonal practices of teaching and learning. In this article, I study email exchanges with three of my students--Jorge, Adriana, and Jason--over the course of one year in an 11th-grade English class at River High School, a…

Recently, irony researchers have emphasized that irony interpretation involves metarepresentational inferencing in order that the perceiver can determine whether the speaker's attitude is counterfactual to their statement. This research investigated whether the perception of irony also depends on the extent to which an ironic statement is suitably…

This article argues that a modified version of Bourdieu's "habitus" concept can generate insights into moral culture and the ways people use culture to make changes in their lives. If revised in light of recent findings from cognitive neuroscience, the habitus allows for the analysis of culture as embodied cognitive structures linking individuals…

In this paper we examine the transferability of the Jigsaw and Fishbowl collaborative learning techniques to the Second Life platform. Our aim is to assess the applicability of Second Life for collaborative learning by developing virtual tools and metaphors and exploiting the representational richness of this novel medium. In order to enhance the…

Metaphor appears to be an innate tendency in human communication and can be shown to have significant potential when applied to the design of online learning environments. This paper describes and discusses an example of an online research methods learning resource that employs metaphoric navigation. Feedback from the tutors who design and…

In recent years, different professional and academic settings have been increasingly utilizing ePortfolios to serve multiple purposes from recruitment to evaluation. This paper analyzes ePortfolios created by graduate students at a Canadian university. Demonstrated is how students' constructions can, and should, be more than a simple compilation…

This mixed-methods study probed the effectiveness of three kinds of objects (video, theory, metaphor) as common reference points for conversations between online learners (student teachers). Individuals' degree of detail-focus was examined as a potentially interacting covariate and the outcome measure was learners' level of tacit knowledge related…

Teaching and learning online is one of several risky practices in higher education today that threaten to disfigure academics' work and identity. For many academics, accustomed to the tempo and practices of face-to-face teaching, it threatens disorientation. In this article the author examines the teaching beliefs of a computer science lecturer,…