The substantial growth of online learning, and in particular, through massively open online courses (MOOCs), supports research into nontraditional learning contexts. Learners' confusion is one of the identified aspects which impact the overall learning process, and ultimately, course attrition. Confusion for a learner is an individual state of…

This study explores the ways in which master thesis writers position their research in the field of English language teaching in a context where academic literacies are still a developing field. From a social semiotic perspective, this paper aims to identify the resources writers use to represent their object of study and provide a context and…

Second language (L2) classroom research has sought to shed light on the processes and practices that develop L2 learners' abilities [Nunan, D. 2004. "Task-based language teaching." London: Continuum; Verplaetse, L. 2014. "Using big questions to apprentice students into language-rich classroom practices." "TESOL…

This study seeks to examine variations in patterns of interactivity as they are displayed in the ongoing discourse construction of high and low self-efficacy learners of Spanish in the context of computer-mediated-communication. The paper specifically focuses on the analysis of synchronous text chats of six university students of Spanish at…

This paper is an application of Robert E. MacLaury's Vantage Theory (VT) to the analysis of real life spoken discourse. It utilizes Dennis R. Preston's (1994) modification of MacLaury's VT. It elucidates how cognitive processes of coordinate selection and combination contribute to the on-line construction of category membership in the abstract…

This study aims to provide a perspective which allows honorifics to be seen beyond the frame of politeness and/or formality in social structures. Korean school grammar explains honorifics as linguistic forms that reflect relative social positional difference (e.g., K-H. Lee, 2010), and has assumed that social structure and language use have a…

The paper investigates Polish punk and hip hop (rap) song lyrics broken down into frequency lists. In an analysis inspired by MacLaury's view of categorization, the construals of punk and hip hop worldviews are shown to vary in the distance of the observer from the world, the width of the viewing frame, as well as the granularity and density of…

Orientations to the extremity of extreme case formulations--expressions using extreme terms such as "all,""none,""most,""every,""least" and so on--are initially shown in how they are sometimes qualified or softened. Further examination shows how ECFs can work as devices for doing "nonliteral," in the sense of being not accountably accurate…

The primary goal of translation is to enable an audience in a Target Language to understand a text/discourse which was ultimately not intended for them. The primary goal of text-analysis is to further the understanding of phenomena inside one language. There are several similarities between translation and text-analysis: both translation and…

Contends that the organization of comments made by one discourse participant on the contributions of another reveals a hierarchy of relevance and informativity. Illustrates this with discourse samples subjected to a particular method of analysis. (FL)

Reviews linguistic structures in the annual reports of a machine tool manufacturer. Concludes that, as profits decreased and the news became more negative, linguistic structures (including verb structures, thematic structures, context and cohesion, and condensations) suggested a factual, "objective" situation caused by circumstances not…

Linguistics research, including studies of classroom discourse and social patterns of language, seeks to identify the functions of language in learning situations. Future educational researchers need grounding in linguistics and other disciplines related to understanding the context of language use. (Author/SK)

This study analyzes the discourse structures of one text type in Central Bontoc, one of eight minority Philippine languages. The text explains the Innana rituals, a complex of six rituals held annually in Bontoc villages shortly after the planting of the rice crop. The rituals are considered extremely important because they are believed to help…

The assumption that "ideal" text grammars are valid descriptions of the schemata used by children to organize their recall of text was challenged in a study involving 150 elementary school children. The children, all with above-average reading ability, were classified as having one of three types of schemata: theme-initial (identifying…