"Variability" and "fractality," two key concepts in Complex Dynamic Systems Theory (CDST)--the former concerning changes and variations, and the latter concerning recursiveness and self-similarities--may seem contradictory at first glance. This forum piece attempts to elucidate how the two seemingly contradictory properties can…

Recent studies in linguistics have shown that metaphor is ubiquitous. This has important consequences for language learners who need to use it appropriately in their speech and writing. This study aims to provide a preliminary measure of the amount and distribution of metaphor used by language learners in their writing across Common European…

This paper reports on the ground-breaking research in the study of languages in doctoral education. It argues for democratizing the production and dissemination of original contributions to knowledge through activating and mobilizing multilingual Higher Degree Researchers' (HDRs) capabilities for theorizing through them using their full linguistic…

Euphemism, a linguistic and cultural phenomenon, which serves as a lubricant in people's communication, has aroused much interest among scholars worldwide. Many researches on euphemism have already been done in different fields, such as in daily conversations, intercultural communication, advertisements, science, literature, business affairs, etc.…

This paper aims to investigate the use of connotations of inanimate objects to describe people by speakers of Jordanian Arabic. Its main goal is to analyze the positive and negative connotative meanings of inanimate object used to describe people in Jordan. Besides, the contribution of gender in making connotative meanings. The study provides a…

We investigate the current position of English in the language ecology of Swedish academia, with a special focus on the humanities. Semi-structured interviews with 15 informants from the fields of Anthropology, General Linguistics and History were carried out to explore how non-native speakers of English experience using academic English in their…

This article discusses the strengths and weaknesses of native and nonnative English teachers in Polish schools in light of the researchers' personal language teaching experience and language teacher research and training. It is argued that the NS/NNS controversy is over simplified and ignores the complexities of teacher training, language…

A large proportion of text is made up of a variety of multi-word units (MWUs). One type of MWU is "idioms". While previously linguists have established criteria to define an idiom, the criteria have often been general so as to apply to the wide-ranging MWUs found in this category, and have been a description of them rather than a definition. We…

Choice of address forms, a socially crucial feature in German communication, is context-dependent on situations (a) where the unmarked form of address is "du" (T), (b) where it is "Sie" (V), and (c) where the two systems (a and b) coexist. The first two situations are, apart from their fuzzy edges, rather clearcut. The third situation, however,…

The 4th international conference "Nation and Language: Modern Aspects of Socio-Linguistic Development" continues an eight-year old tradition. The conference is organized by Kaunas University of Technology Panevezys Institute and aims to bring scientists and researchers together for a general scientific discussion on new trends in…

This article addresses the question of how second language (L2) learners understand idiomatic expressions in their second/foreign language and advances the proposition that literal meanings of idiom constituents enjoy processing priority over their figurative interpretations. This suggestion forms the core of the literal-salience resonant model of…

This study investigates whether proficient second language (L2) speakers of Spanish and English use the same parsing strategies as monolinguals when reading temporarily ambiguous sentences containing a complex noun phrase followed by a relative clause, such as "Peter fell in love with the daughter of the psychologist who studied in California."…

American and Canadian research is reviewed concerning the language needs of native primary students entering English schools from homes where a language other than English is spoken, and a study is reported that contrasted the language performance of children entering school from homes where only English is spoken and from homes where a language…

Papers in this serial on aspects of applied linguistics include: "An Investigation into Teachers' Attitudes to Using Literature in the Language Classroom" (Marie Gilroy); "Creating Multimedia Courseware for ESP" (Philip Goertzen, Ron Howard); "A Comparison of Listening and Speaking Tests for Student Placement" (Anne Heller, Tony Lynch, Linda…