We investigated the effect of culture and social status on sarcasm interpretation. Two hundred U.K. participants and 200 Chinese participants read scenarios in which the final comment could be either literal or sarcastic criticism and the speaker had equal, higher, or lower social status compared to the recipient. Comments were rated on degree of…

The current study investigates how foreign language enjoyment (FLE), foreign language classroom anxiety (FLCA) and attitude/motivation (AM) of 360 learners of English, German, French and Spanish in a Kuwaiti university was shaped over the course of one semester by three teacher behaviours: frequency of using the foreign language (FL) in class,…

Through the lens of conversational analysis (CA), humor or funniness is not an inherent property of a message, nor an internal state of any social action, but as something interactionally achieved (Glenn, 2003). Teachers are often encouraged to utilize humor to reduce anxiety, lower affective filters, and make language more "memorable"…

Learning a new language is a challenge facing most young immigrants and refugees arriving in a new resettlement country. Yet, learning the resettlement country language is critical for the young immigrants and refugees' life chances, in terms of future education, social integration, and participation in the labour market. While literature…

This study investigates COVID-19 jokes created and circulated on Jordanian social media during the period between March to October 2020. The jokes used in this study were collected from several Facebook accounts. The study presents a content analysis and a linguistic analysis of 197 COVID-19 jokes in terms of the General Theory of Verbal Humor…

Background/Purpose: Indonesian Stand-up Comedy (SUCI) Comics use comedy to articulate concerns on societal issues, hence offering social critique. Abdurrahim Arsyad presented a social critique regarding schooling at the special program "Pahlawan Perlu Tanda Jasa 'Heroes Need Honors' (HNH)". An effective SUCI encompasses the comedians'…

This article describes a critical literacy research project undertaken with English Additional Language students at a South African township school. Students were invited to take on the position of researchers in gathering and analysing bumper stickers found in commuter minibuses known as itekisi (taxi). These everyday texts in English and African…

Expressing emotions in a narrative requires a high degree of narrators' involvement in and reflection of personal experiences. An array of complex emotions is reflected in the narrators' use of a wide range of language and paralanguage tools when they share their feelings with their audience. This study attempted to investigate how female…

The integration of augmented reality (AR) into children's literature has transformed traditional reading experiences, creating immersive and interactive environments that engage young readers. This study examines the creative methods of comic language within AR children's books, positing that the combination of humor and visual storytelling can…

The ability to communicate through oral language is an innate human characteristic (Chomsky, 1968; Pinker, 2007) and is a product of the social process (Vygotsky, 1978). Though the language " … in people's heads does not always translate automatically into appropriate words and phrases …" uttered through the mouth (Chafe &…

Purpose: This paper aims to present the experiences, beliefs and perceptions of international faculty at a Research 1 institution in the Southern US regarding the perceived differences between their and their students' and colleagues' cultures and first languages. Design/methodology/approach: Face-to-face interviews were conducted with four…

Although there is a body of research on the teacher first language (L1) use in English-medium-instruction (EMI) classrooms, very little research has probed into how international students perceive local teacher L1 use and their learning practices in the English as a lingua franca (ELF) context. To address the gap, the present case study explored a…

Recently, there is a surge of interest in a wide range of learner emotions in the SLA field, underlining a holistic perspective of language learning emotions. The present study examines the relationships between the three prevalent emotions among language learners -- foreign language enjoyment (FLE), foreign language anxiety (FLA), and foreign…

This paper draws on a multimodal notion of metrolingualism to discuss playful T-shirt displays of Galician and Basque language, culture and identity. They invite the audience to reflect on notions of Galicianness and Basqueness by mixing localising resources such as minority language and cultural heritage with globalised resources of fluidity,…

Becoming a professional worker involves a wide range of cognitive, social, and cultural processes that have received extensive attention over the past decades amongst various disciplines. It is also not external to language use and communication. Novices in any occupation have to learn technical terms and are expected to master specific discourse…