Mastering academic writing skills in English is essential for future researchers. At present, AI language processing tools provide high-quality, accessible, and fast assistance for translation, editing, and stylistic enhancement of scientific texts. However, their use within English for Academic Purposes (EAP) courses generates mixed reactions…

Synthesis writing is widely taught across domains and serves as an important means of assessing writing ability, text comprehension, and content learning. Synthesis writing differs from other types of writing in terms of both cognitive and task demands because it requires writers to integrate information across source materials. However, little is…

This study is a conceptual replication of Ellis' 'Measuring implicit and explicit knowledge of a second language: A psychometric study', published in "Studies in Second Language Acquisition" (2005), aiming to establish the importance of including belief statements (hypothesized to increase processing demands) in the design of Elicited…

The most recent studies on the acquisition of evidentiality, be it morphologically or syntactically encoded, have argued that the comprehension lag detected is due to factors having to do with others' authority or mental perspective, where "others" stands for other individuals involved in the experiment in various manners (e.g., the…

We propose that negative clauses are generally interpreted as if the affirmative portion of the clause is under discussion, a likely topic. This predicts a preference for affirmative (topical) antecedents over negative antecedents of a following missing verb phrase (VP). Three experiments tested the predictions of this hypothesis in sentences…

This exploratory study focuses on the use of ChatGPT, a generative artificial intelligence (GAI) tool, by undergraduate engineering students in lab report writing in the major. Literature addressing the impact of ChatGPT and AI on student writing suggests that such technologies can both support and limit students' composing and learning processes.…

The past decades witness an ongoing interest in reconceptualizing writing as digital multimodal composing (DMC). The emergence of language and multimodal generative artificial intelligence (GAI) tools leads to new forms of DMC processes and products. Yet prior studies have mostly examined non-GAI-assisted DMC, and few have explored how…

The use of machine translation (MT) tools remains controversial among language instructors, with limited integration into classroom practices. While much of the existing research into MT and language education has explored instructor perceptions, less is known about how students actually use MT or how student use compares to instructor beliefs and…

At present, ChatGPT is penetrating all spheres of human activities, and especially education is no exception. The purpose of this exploratory study is to examine the potentials and pitfalls of using ChatGPT for academic purposes among university students, as well as provide relevant pedagogical implications for its use in academia. The methodology…

Providing consistent, individualized feedback to teachers is essential for improving instruction but can be prohibitively resource intensive in most educational contexts. We develop an automated tool based on natural language processing to give teachers feedback on their uptake of student contributions, a high-leverage teaching practice that…

In most universities in South Africa, English is still preferred as the medium of instruction. However, most schools in South Africa have adopted a home-language education approach. Those school students then have a lower English proficiency compared to other students from English schools. Providing these students with instructional assistance…

Legal language is characterized by its specialized lexicology, often formed through derivational processes such as affixation, nominalization, and semantic derivation, making legal texts more challenging to understand. This research examined how university students majoring in legal English linguistics recognize, interpret, and manage the…

This mixed-methods study investigated the impact of musical lyrics and working memory capacities on second language (L2) English reading comprehension among adult Chinese native speakers. Participants were 57 adult ESL learners with advanced L2 proficiency, divided into high and low working memory capacity groups based on a pre-test. They…

Existing work on the acquisition of polarity-sensitive expressions (PSIs) suggests that children show an early sensitivity to the restricted distribution of negative polarity items (NPIs), but may be delayed in the acquisition of positive polarity items (PPIs). However, past studies primarily targeted PSIs that are highly frequent in children's…

The new contexts in higher education, shifting from face-to-face to online scenarios, encourage the application of disruptive methodologies adapted to distance learning. Translation and interpreting (T&I) programmes ideally foster the acquisition of competencies such as self-study, which graduates need to enter a largely freelance and…