This study intends to provide a semantic analysis of metaphorical expressions containing the body-part term "heart" in Chinese and English. The discussion of these expressions revolves around four perceived roles of the heart. It is suggested that the metaphorical consequences have a bodily or psychological basis on our hearts. The…

In a previous study (here termed Study 1), we explored the effects of working memory loads on young children's recall of passive voice structures. We found that participants (n = 36) were more likely to use the passive voice in recall responses when holding an unrelated memory load but were more likely to use the active voice when not under load.…

It has been reported for decades that preschool children (age 4-7) tend to assign non-adult-like interpretations for sentences with pre-subject exclusive only. This study reports findings from two experiments investigating (1) the effects of (in)congruent implicit questions in discourse contexts and (2) word order transformation on children's…

Toddlers with smaller vocabulary than expected for their age are considered late talkers (LT). This study explored the effects of characteristics of words on vocabulary acquisition of 12- to 24-month-old LT children compared with an age matched (AM) and a vocabulary matched (VM) group of typically developing peers. Using the…

People learn language variation through exposure to linguistic interactions. The way we take part in these interactions is shaped by our lexical representations, the mechanisms of language processing, and the social context. Existing work has looked at how we learn and store variation in the ambient language. How this is mediated by the social…

AI-based simulations for educational and assessment purposes are gaining global recognition. Informed by cultural comparison research, this study investigates cross-country variations in users' utilization and perceptions of a simulation-based assessment. Specifically, we conducted a comparative analysis between a sample of South African and…

This study aims to investigate ChatGPT's ability to comprehend input from nonnative speakers, specifically those learning English as a second language, with Japanese speakers serving as the model population. The experiment examines how ChatGPT evaluates the difficulty levels of the Test of English for International Communication (TOEIC), which is…

Ambridge argues persuasively for the importance in language learning of a rich database of input exemplars. However, a fuller account must also consider the importance of on-line and developmental competition between rote exemplar-based storage and emergent patterns that can optimize retrieval. [For Ben Ambridge's "Against Stored…

This article examines whether children alter a variable phonological pattern in an artificial language towards a phonetically-natural form. We address acquisition of a variable rounding harmony pattern through the use of two artificial languages; one with dominant harmony pattern, and another with dominant non-harmony pattern. Overall, children…

This thesis investigates the choice between reflexive pronouns (e.g., "herself") and personal pronouns (e.g., "her") in the expression of subject coreference in English locative prepositional phrases. A persistent puzzle for syntactic theories of pronoun licensing, commonly known as binding theories, it has long been observed…

Speech is highly variable and systematic, governed by the internal linguistic system and socio-indexical factors. The systematic relationship of socio-indexical factors and variable phonetic forms, referred to here as "socio-indexical structure," has been the cornerstone of sociophonetic research over the last several decades. Research…

This research aims to analyze language patterns in hate speech found in comments on YouTube about Rohingya refugees in Thailand and Syrian refugees in Europe. Data were collected from 4,113 comments in Thai and 13,960 comments in English and appeared on a video-sharing website specifically from news clips about Rohingya refugees in Thailand during…

As a corpus-assisted method for language pedagogy, DDL (data-driven learning) may have the potential to enhance language exposure and promote active learner engagement. Concordancing, or KWIC (Key Words in Context), has been the traditional method used in DDL to retrieve numerous language examples, while the method has limitations with…

This dissertation sets out to find an answer to the question why not all logically conceivable patterns are found typologically. In other words, my aim is to find paradigmatic gaps and explain their absence. In doing so, I use the mathematical notion of monotonicity (which is a more general term to convey order preservation) as proposed by Graf…

Press representations of autism and autistic people both reflect and help shape public attitudes towards autism and neurodiversity and may establish critical barriers to social integration for autistic individuals. This study examined such representations in UK newspapers in the period 2011-2020 using a corpus-based approach. It also considered…