The concept of translanguaging is one of the most successful ones in the recent history of multilingualism research. But what does it really mean? It covers such a wide semantic field that users seem to be free to decide its meaning in whatever way they wish. A key uniting idea of the different approaches is that teachers should 'draw upon' the…

Studying early language development has been a challenging task throughout the years. Earlier studies mostly documented language competence only after toddlers had started producing their first words. Theoretical and methodological advances in this domain brought about more sophisticated ways of probing into early development by exploiting overt…

There is a current 'theory crisis' in language acquisition research, resulting from fragmentation both at the level of the approaches and the linguistic level studied. We identify a need for integrative approaches that go beyond these limitations, and propose to analyse the strengths and weaknesses of current theoretical approaches of language…

This article presents a theoretical review of and methodological guidelines for the study of two key notions in second language acquisition research, complexity and difficulty. The term "complexity" has gained considerable currency over the past decades and has taken on a wide range of meanings. We argue for a more restricted…

Meta-analyses play an instrumental role in informing second language (L2) theory and practice. However, current (i.e., classic) approaches to meta-analysis are limited in their ability to do so because they often fail to capture the complexity inherent in primary studies' research designs. As we argue in this article, when complex L2 studies are…

This article presents the use of conversation analysis (CA) in the context of sociocultural theory (SCT) driven research on L2 development, or CA-for-SCT. I focus specifically on the CA concept of action ascription as it applies to understanding the nature of mediation in interaction. I begin with an overview of the concept of action ascription…

Mixed methods research, or mixed research, is an area with a great deal of promise for applied linguistics, especially given the field's diverse range of topics and methods. However, when mixed research mixes qualitative and qualitative methods, this can be problematic as researchers suppose this implies mixing mutually exclusive 'quantitative'…

This paper addresses the necessary complementarity between a translanguaging and named language-perspective by critically examining risks of 'overshooting' when a translanguaging view is theoretically posited as the ultimately superior (sociolinguistic) theory of language use and learning in today's multilingual world.

This reflective piece seeks to shed light on the numerous contributions of Diane Larsen-Freeman to theory construction, applied linguistics, and language education by drawing parallels and insights from the FIFA 2022 Qatar World Cup Final. Looking at the multitude of factors that affect both soccer games and language development research,…

The deaf population of Martha's Vineyard has fascinated scholars for more than a century since Alexander Graham Bell's research on the frequent occurrence of deafness there and since Groce's book on the island's signing community (Groce, N. E. (1985). "Everyone here spoke sign language: Hereditary deafness on Martha's Vineyard."…

The field of applied linguistics is a remarkable case of deep intersection of the skewed geopolitics of knowledge (epistemic inequalities) and language (the ascendency of English as both a topic of research and academic lingua franca). The dominance of the Anglo-sphere through epistemology and language in applied linguistics renders the process of…

This reflective piece tells the story of how I started out doing Conversation Analysis (CA) and have been transitioning into doing mixed methods for some years now. My basic argument is that language learning talk is too complex a phenomenon to analyse using a single methodology. Specifically, it is extremely difficult to isolate from the…

This analysis examines an archaeology of statal narratives as they relate to the multilingual linguistic milieu of the Philippines since independence at mid-20th century. Critical transformations to statal narratives linked to language over the last century have been shaped by interacting, sometimes competing discourses, deriving from a…

A lot of attention has been devoted in the last 30 years to understanding nativeness and what has traditionally been called non-nativeness. While many studies have attempted to problematize the dichotomic division between so-called native speakers and non-native speakers, several others have specifically focussed on the language teaching…

I investigate the acquisition of affrication in Québec French (QF), where affricates are in complementary distribution with coronal stops, being realized before high front vowels and glides. Previous research on other languages shows that affricates are acquired before branching onsets, which supports the idea that complexity at the level of the…