This study investigates the acquisition of genericity in L2 French and L3 English. While some exponents become generic by assembling morphological, syntactic and discursive cues, definite singular nominals additionally require the well-established kind restriction. It is a pragmatic and language-specific constraint. The participants are L1 Arabic…

English as a foreign language (EFL) teachers and students are often pressured to use generic, globally published textbooks featuring 'inner-circle' social realities. While some studies look at specific instances of content that socially marginalizes their intended audiences, few attempt comprehensive examinations of the multimodal ensembles on…

This study aims to compare the rhetorical move structure of English Medium Instruction (EMI) lectures given by native English and Chinese lecturers. Two specialized corpora were therefore accordingly created with transcripts of twelve science-oriented lectures selected from MICASE and the BASE corpus and twelve science-oriented EMI lectures…

For the purpose of achieving a successful communication, issues such as the appropriateness of speech acts and face saving become essential. Therefore, it is very important to achieve a high level of pragmatic competence in speech acts. Bearing this in mind, this study was conducted to investigate the preferred refusal strategies Kurdish and…

This paper discusses to what extent synchronous communication via Skype by Argentine university students of History and Danish university students of Spanish contributed to fostering intercultural competence in the two groups of participants. Intercultural gains are considered both as part of the planned tasks to be solved by the participants…

This paper discusses the design and implementation of a pedagogical intervention aimed at raising sociopragmatic awareness in the context of Spanish as a foreign language in Denmark. The intervention consists of a blended-learning environment where the three main components are synchronous telecollaboration via Skype, reflection sessions in groups…

Teachers' professional identity influences the way they think and teach. For pre-service non-native English speaking teachers (NNESTs), they are at the crucial stage of constructing self-image and self-perception as English language teaching (ELT) professionals, their beliefs about English teaching and learning and their attitudes towards changing…

This study examines how Japanese students perceive the qualities of written arguments that were constructed to have different forms. Based on the theoretical dimensions of verbal communication styles that Gudykunst and Ting-Toomey (1988) proposed, the research questions asked whether the respondents would perceive direct arguments to be of higher…

An English discourse completion questionnaire consisting of 60 situations designed to elicit suggestions in English was administered to 28 native speakers of Chinese or Malay and to 12 native speakers of American English. Non-native speakers of English were more direct in their responses. Native and non-native speakers significantly differed in…